Gil Maguire

Gil Maguire was born in the cow town of Prineville, in central Oregon in 1943 while his mother and two older siblings were en route to an Army Air Corps base in Idaho where his father was training combat pilots. His upbringing was chaotic, with constant moves overseas and throughout the western states. Having joined the Air Force after high school, he learned Russian at Indiana University and then became an intelligence analyst during the height of the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

After college he taught elementary school for three years. Then deciding adventure was a higher calling, he left with his soon-to-be bride on a five year voyage on a 28 foot sailboat down the coast of Mexico and Central America, through the Panama Canal and into the Caribbean, then back to the then US-controlled Canal Zone. There he and his wife rebuilt their boat and got jobs, his as a Canal Zone policeman working undercover as well as in a variety of more normal police roles. After two years they sailed west to Cocos Island, the Galapagos Islands, and then 24 days across the South Pacific to French Polynesia. After a year of cruising the big islands and atolls of the Marquesas, Tuamotus and Society Islands, they sailed up to Hawaii and then came home to Ventura, California. There he began a marine refrigeration business that eventually turned into a navigation school and marine chandlery in which he taught and equipped other would-be voyagers for their own high seas exploits. Fifteen years and three children later, he decided he needed more intellectual stimulation and went to law school at night.

After nearly 20 years of practice as a civil rights and employment law attorney he decided to pursue his life-long dream of being a writer. Armageddon in the Gulf, which is two novels: Prelude to Disaster and Armageddon and Redemption, are his second and third novels. His first, Guadalupe Voyage, not yet published, is a sailing adventure and romance involving a middle-aged lawyer and a female FBI agent. They meet randomly in a yacht club bar then sail to Guadalupe Island 100 miles off Mexico’s Baja coast encountering and battling Mexican cartel drug smugglers along the way.

Today Gil fulfills his life-long passion for sailing by cruising and racing his brother’s 43 foot sloop Tenacity, both with crew, and on long single-handed races including to Guadalupe Island and back. He writes both at home and as often as possible while anchored in empty coves in the Channel Islands off Southern California, with only the cries of gulls and yelping sea lions to keep him and Tenacity company.

He and his wife of 40 years live in Oxnard, California with their two cats.