Vita Umbratilis: Life in the shade
You might as well know right up front that I’m not comfortable writing about myself.I find it pretentious at best and self-serving at the worst. Nevertheless, my publicist told me to come up with a short bio, so…
I grew up on the Central California coast in a sleepy little agricultural community called Watsonville, but I never tell people that’s where I’m from because no one has ever heard of it. I always say I’m from Santa Cruz. Almost everyone has heard of Santa Cruz. You know, “Surf City”; Steamer Lane; The Boardwalk; Redwoods; The Fighting Banana Slugs (I’m not making that up. The UCSC mascot is the lowly Banana Slug).
I attended a small, private university that was hidden away back among the redwoods in the Santa Cruz mountains. I majored in music composition with a minor in psychology, but I was a horrible student! Simply awful! I had no time for school. I was too busy playing bass, writing songs and performing with any one of several bands I had joined. It was a portent of things to come as at the age of nineteen I became regularly employed as a session musician up in the Bay Area of California. But it was at that funky little school that I met Cheri, the one true love of my life to whom I have been married for many adventuresome years.
I started writing seriously following a long and satisfying career in the music industry as a songwriter, recording artist, arranger, producer and director of A&R for a couple of record labels. As a songwriter I have over one hundred and fifty songs in publication worldwide and have produced over one hundred album projects and blah, blah, blah.
I am the author of the popular Jake Moriarity series of novels; “The Voices In My Head,” (the life story of late Las Vegas entertainment icon, Danny Gans); two volumes of Snapshots At St. Arbuck’s ™; and numerous stand alone novels. I live with my first wife on the coast of somewhere beautiful. Can sing a little. Hit me up (I think that’s the way it is supposed to be said) at:
R.G. Ryan 