Fred Baker

Born a World War II baby in Pensacola, Florida, Fred Baker grew up on a ranch in western Montana, "ranch raised and rodeo bred". A high school valedictorian, he holds degrees in psychology, auto mechanics, and auctioneering, though his most valuable education has come via the college of hard knocks. Surviving more than one hundred jobs in a dozen career fields ranging from professional rodeo to roughnecking in the oil patch to social work and underground mining, he has been divorced six times, bankrupt twice, and is one of the relatively few people in multilevel marketing to earn more than a million dollars in that industry.

A third generation writer, descended from a college English professor and a mother who taught high school English, Baker published his first science fiction novel, Ptolia, in 1982. His first raging success, however, involved a one act play he was assigned to write for a creative writing English class in high school. In the play, a young hunter accidentally shoots his hunting buddy and then has to patch up the wound as best he can. He succeeds, but not without vomiting in the process. Each play was taped; grades were assigned according to the effectiveness of the tape when played for the teacher. Fred's audio recording of the boy getting sick was enough to turn the teacher's face green, and he was hooked for life on the power of the written word.

Baker lives with his seventh wife, two cats, one leopard gecko, and plenty of wildlife on an off grid southern Arizona acreage in a home he built single handed at the age of sixty-six.