Larry J. Dunlap

"Though I'd always wanted to be a creative writer from my youth, my writing career didn't begin until late in life as a pencil-for-hire, technical and training writer for Fortune 50 companies in the 1990s. In the 1970s, the years following my memoir project, I spent most of the decade working in Hollywood as a personal manager, publisher, and Sunset Boulevard recording studio owner/operator. While actually seeking a way out of the music business in the 1980s, I developed a love affair with early computer gaming that

"Though I'd always wanted to be a creative writer from my youth, my writing career didn't begin until late in life as a pencil-for-hire, technical and training writer for Fortune 50 companies in the 1990s. In the 1970s, the years following my memoir project, I spent most of the decade working in Hollywood as a personal manager, publisher, and Sunset Boulevard recording studio owner/operator. While actually seeking a way out of the music business in the 1980s, I developed a love affair with early computer gaming that led me to co-found The Games Network, Inc., the first all-digital broadcasting cable network, followed by several years in video and film production and post-production.

My favorite project has been imagining a galactic empire as a backdrop for an online game system. In the mid-2000s, I designed what I considered to be an innovative gameplay and delivery system and gathered together a highly talented art and programming team to develop a breakthrough graphical multiplayer online strategy game called IMPERIAL WARS. Since I didn't have the resources initially to develop the game, it gave me a lot of time to work on a history of the empire and develop ideas and concepts for a trilogy based on a specific time in this history. For my latest project I have begun work on the first volume, working-name, IMPERIA, and roughing out the two following books. I've been a huge science-fiction fan since the golden age of sci-fi in the late 1950s and early 60s. It's hard not to be intimidated by the incredible authors in this genre between then and now but I'm excited by the challenge.

At various moments over the years, I have published short stories, been a rock music review columnist for a California lifestyle magazine, and authored and drawn a published music-based cartoon strip named Frets. I author fiction and creative non-fiction project from a wonderful little hideaway near the ocean in Southern California where I count my blessings and share my life with my wife Laurie and our pet Chilidog."