Vaughn’s sixth grade teacher, Mr. Raymond, put him and a half-dozen classmates into an advance reading group, gave them each a copy of The Hobbit, and left them to it. Vaughn was never the same again. Finishing first among the group, the teacher bought him a boxed set of Lord of the Rings paperbacks, and he never looked back. The gift sparked a lifelong passion for reading and history.
After college, life intervened. Instead of writing epic tales, he married his soul mate, and they set about building a successful wholesale business together in Chicagoland. While there, they built a getaway cottage near their favorite shoreline in Southwest Michigan, in a fashion that would make the elves of Rivendell proud. It was the perfect place not only to escape the hustle and bustle, but to bury his nose in epic fantasy novels by the hearth.