Michael Rea was born in Eugene, Oregon and spent his entire youth living in the Pacific Northwest, where he enjoyed many moments camping, hiking and fishing in the Cascade Mountains of Washington and Oregon. He attended Westmont College in Santa Barbara, CA where he earned a B.A. in Chemistry and upon graduation, enrolled in a graduate program in Chemistry at the University of Illinois. Although expecting to complete his Ph.D. and begin a career as a research scientist, he unexpectedly fell in love with teaching, completed a M.S. in Teaching Chemistry and embarked on a career in secondary education.
Aside from his love for science, and his newly discovered passion for writing, Michael is also an artist, specializing in landscape and wildlife paintings in oil. He and his wife, Janet, love to travel and they make an effort to visit at least one national park every summer. These trips have contributed many of the subjects for his paintings, while at the same time providing him with a time to get away to write. Together, he and his wife share a love for literature. A list of his favorite authors suggests a diverse influence on his writing: Isaac Asimov, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R Tolkein, Sir Walter Scott, Alexander Dumas and Charles Dickens.
With over thirty years of experience in education, he has taught courses in all levels of mathematics and science, art, philosophy and religious studies. Science and the arts don't always mix well, but Michael's proficiency in both makes for an interesting combination, as does his eclectic background in coaching, teaching, and high school administration. He currently divides his time between his love of teaching chemistry and physics to his students and his love of oil painting and writing.
Today, Michael and his wife live in Temecula, CA. They have three children and three grandchildren.
"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." --Milton