At the time of Hoffnungslose Ziele's writing, I was a 36-year old father of four and a practicing attorney licensed in the State of California. I’m also a United States Air Force veteran with service in Afghanistan and the Republic of Korea. Since I was a teenager, it has always been my dream to write. I started writing short stories, often in collaboration with friends, as early as 1st Grade. It’s something I’ve enjoyed doing my entire life. In fact, the genesis of my current novel, “Hoffnungslose Ziele,” came from a NaNoWriMo challenge issued by my best friend back in 2014. The short story I wrote had very little to do with my current novel, but marked the first time I experimented with the epistolary novel format (albeit exclusively diary entries by a single character). I immediately fell in love with the format. For “Hoffnungslose Ziele,” I wrote entirely from the perspective of six characters penning diary entries and the occasional letters to each other. It’s a very interesting format, giving the reader a first person perspective, without limiting that perspective to the mind of a single protagonist. I was also deeply interested in Central European (especially Prussian) folklore, which is why “Hoffnungslose Ziele” dispenses with many of the 20th Century conceptions of such creatures as werewolves and vampires, hearkening back instead to 19th century folklore about these creatures with a healthy dose of my own imagination mixed in. Lastly, I am a Veller, Gauger, Rhode, Strehl, and Ehlers descendant, which gives my novel a bit of a personal touch. Anna and Gustav in particular embody thoughts, feelings, and ideals I harbored when I was roughly their ages. They’re a part of me, and vice versa.