About the author:


Shawn was raised in the middle of the Snoqualmie Pass ski areas. In addition to being an avid life long reader, Shawn spent as much time hiking, skiing, rock climbing and cycling.  This continued through his High School years as well as the five years he spent studying with the Benedictine monks of The Seminary of Christ the King in B.C. Canada, where he completed his BA in Philosophy.  Shawn traveled several times to Europe and immersed himself in amateur bicycle racing and picked up some cash modeling occasionally in Milan.  He has focused his career for the past twenty years on securing information systems. He completed his MFA in writing at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado in 2000.  His book "Open Your Heart with Bicycling..." recently won a Next Generation Indie Book Award. His first novel, "Playing the Game" was released in April 2008. His next novel, "Feast Days of the Saints" is set for release in Spring, 2009.


Author Statement

There are very few heroes.  My literature professors always wanted me to see the purpose of the novel as a tool to help us learn how to come to resolution, but I have strayed from that.  Very little in life is neat and tidy; there are usually great conflicts of interest that prevent the hero from being cleanly victorious.  In "Playing the Game" the cops are accidentally effective and the perpetrators stumble from one violent success to the next, and in the end there is a hero who can barely fit into the skin tight costume.