What I Did After I Died follows a man who is unaware he is dead as he enlists his family to accompany him on an unconventional treasure hunt. Where did the idea for this story come from?

I traveled north for a guys’ fishing trip in New Hampshire and a bartender told us about a lake in the mountains with free canoes. We found the lake on Google Maps and drove up a road that turned into gravel, and then into complete brush. We abandoned the car and started hiking through thickets for miles, getting totally exhausted, and never finding the lake. We were the worst explorers ever, which planted the seed to write about a disastrous mountain adventure. Maybe the ghosts idea came from all the jokes we made while hiking, that we would surely die out there. By the way, there was an alternate road that we discovered hours later, with a nicely paved trail to the lake.

What part of this book was the most fun to write?

My two prior novels, To the Top of Greenfield Street and When To Fire, are coming of age and psychic-western, respectively. Writing an adventurous quest felt different and fun. I liked the parallel of a family searching for treasure alongside a ghost searching for spiritual peace.

What characters in your book are most similar to you or to people you know?

This book is heavy on family dynamics that echo my daughter, wife, and my sister. The latter especially loved this story and urged me forward.

Can we look forward to more work from you soon? What are you currently working on?

I’m a high school teacher looking forward to writing all summer. Sometimes I read short stories that I wrote decades ago and find inspiration. So far my novels involve realism, psychics, and ghosts, so maybe my next move is aliens, haha.

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