About

Welcome to my website and blog. I write mystery, thriller, and speculative fiction novels. I’ve had short stories published in The Missouri Review, The Massachusetts Review, Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts, and StepAway Magazine. I’m also the author of the Shamus Award-winning and Edgar Award-nominated mystery novel Twice the Trouble from Crooked Lane Books.

My all-time favorite writers are John Updike, Robert Stone, Joyce Carol Oates, Paul Theroux, Allison Lurie, Ray Bradbury, and Stephen King. I am lucky to be represented by the best literary agent in America, Cindy Bullard, and her great firm, Birch Literary.

I live in the same town where I grew up in–Gainesville, Florida, where my dad, Wayland Clifton, was Police Chief for almost a decade. The University of Florida is located here. I’m an alumnus, as is almost all my family, including my wife, my brother, and my brothers- and sisters-in-law. I was an English major who also took classes in creative writing, studying under great writers like Harry Crews and Padgett Powell.

After I graduated, I traveled to Tucson and got an M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the University of Arizona, taking workshops under Jonathan Penner, Terry McMillian, C.E. Poverman, and Joy Williams. Then I moved back to Florida and, like so many other under-employed English-major types, fell into a career in I.T. I became a software developer working for various companies. Fortunately, I reconnected with an old friend from college, Cathy Campbell, and fell in love. After some time spent in Orlando, we got married, moved back to Gainesville, and have been here ever since.