I am an LA-based novelist and the creator of the Tales of Hope series, four Christ-centered adventure novels for families and young readers, with a fifth on the way, that multiple reviewers have compared to C.S. Lewis's Narnia.

The series is built around a beloved grandfather who tells his great-grandchildren timeless tales of children on extraordinary journeys, each one woven through with Scripture and the quiet work of God's grace.

I studied writing at UCLA under Leonardo Bercovici, the legendary Hollywood screenwriter who co-wrote The Bishop's Wife starring Cary Grant, Loretta Young and David Niven, and honed my craft further at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, where I had the opportunity to hear Ray Bradbury, Sloan Wilson, and William F. Buckley share their knowledge on the craft of writing.

I caught the storyteller bug from my father, who came to America as a child with almost nothing but his imagination. When I was a child, he loved to tell my sister and brother and me tales of the Good Whale John, who roams the world in search of children in distress. In his eighties he put that gift to use one final time, writing The Legend of the Thirteenth Disciple, a novel that fills in the untold spaces in the life of Jesus of Nazareth through the eyes of those who witnessed it firsthand.

Rick lives in Los Angeles with his wife Bettina, who keeps him busy grooming and tacking the horses she loves to ride and jump.