Jonathan Ray Carmona

Greetings! I am a very independent minded Baptist Christian, homeschooled, autodidact, supernerd, military brat who has been privileged to travel all over the country and - Well... just about everywhere else in my short life so far.

So I was born in Florida in 1984 and lived in the following places when Dad was in the Air Force and from the ages of 2 – 15: Misawa Air Base in Japan, Lacey & McCord AFB at Tacoma in Washington state at, Andersen AFB near Yigo in Guam, California City & Edwards AFB in Southern California, and Dover Delaware after Dad retired from 20 years of service.

Dover Delaware would be my high school home and where I now consider my “home” as I lived there the longest of any place else; I also have many good friends there still to this day. Capital Baptist School was my High School. Twas a good place with just under a hundred high schoolers most years. I graduated in a class of just 5. Now because I was an introvert, I did not fully enjoy school as much as I could have. But when I finally began to spread my wings and leave the nest after graduation, I went off to the brass buckle of Christian Fundamentalism; Bob Jones University in Greenville SC in 2004, for my initiation into College life. It was great. I really loved college life there as it was where I felt like I really grew up, mentally matured, and learned how to not be so introverted; i.e. – I learned to be more comfortable with who I am.

My younger brothers all told me how cool I was when I came home; so I knew that I had indeed finally changed and come out of my shell a bit. But alas, I did not complete my college life as far as a degree goes; limited finances denied me that option as I came to the end of the third semester. Thus I went home to where my family had moved by that time - the US Deep South.

Our new family home was Hartsville, South Carolina where I did a few odd jobs for a couple years (including one where I got to work security at a Nuclear power plant) until finally deciding to join the military myself. So I enlisted in the Air Force in 2007 and was trained in structural engineering and maintenance for the next 6 years of my life where I was either working stateside in my home base of Dover AFB, (which was super cool since that was right near my high school home) or deploying out for about 6 months at a time to Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, or Qatar in the Middle East. Each deployment was unique and eye opening. We Americans got it SO good! Being deployed always made me miss home so much. But it was fascinating to see these far flung cultures first hand.

After finishing my career in the Air Force, I used the GI bill to do some more college, coming super close to finishing a 4 year degree in Political Science with a focus on Historical Studies. But once again money (and my own stupidity I suppose) got in the way. It was at this time in 2017 that I really got hit hard by the writing bug and began knocking out the first book of the Lord Vondor Series. And so at the end of 2018, when my parents back in SC saw that I was finished school and needed my Air Force construction skills to help them remodel their house, I jumped on that opportunity so that I could both help them and have ample time to write. Now I work at a Bowling Alley for money and am trying to learn Book Marketing skills. Life has been quite an adventure so far and I look forward greatly to this exciting new chapter of life – the challenge of becoming a published novelist! (4-26-2025)