Phil Konstantin

I was born and grew up in Houston, Texas. Reading and writing have always been one of my favorite pastimes. While having written over 100 newspaper and magazine articles, I was 52 before my first book came out.

The most common advice new authors receive is to "write what you know." Growing up proud of my Cherokee ancestry, I decided to do research into historical events which can be related to a specific date after going through a day-at-a-time calendar. After 10 years of research, I had compiled over 6,000 events in American Indian history (I only use the term "native American" to describe anyone born in the Americas). Also gathering lots of tribal name meanings, alternate tribal names and calendar information, my first book was published in 2002.

Since then, I co-wrote a book on Wacky Laws, wrote 25% of Native American Indian History For Dummies, and contributed to two encyclopedias.

My website was one of the earliest to deal with American Indians. It also includes lots of information about other subjects. For example, I helped run the computers in Mission Control at NASA during the last two Apollo moon missions and all of the Skylab program. So, I have lot of space info, as well as photos and copies of magazine or newspaper articles.

There are literally over 10,000 photos on my website, Many of these come from trips through ancient ruins in North America, or the US Space Program. Other photos are from my present career as a TV reporter in San Diego, California operating out of a helicopter. I have worked with many famous people and I have chronicled these encounters with lots of photos.

My main website is http://americanindian.net