About Me

My name is Wes. I’m a writer and an artist. I write novel-length literary and experimental fiction. I’m currently at work on several fiction novels which are in various stages of development.

I grew up in Southern California in the 80s. I spent a lot of my teenage youth in the 90s and 00s with a camcorder in my hand, shooting and editing short films. I was constantly documenting the culture of my youth and experimenting with subject matter and techniques. I obsessed over the editing process. This eventually became a deeper interest in filmmaking, a cinephilia which has only deepened in my maturity.

I was also a compulsive and passionate writer from early on. I wrote fiction narratives throughout high school. I took my craft more seriously in college where I studied writing as wells as film as an undergrad. I continued to produce short stories to be critiqued and reviewed by a community of creative peers. I took a writing course abroad in Italy where I stayed on the island of Ischia for a summer. From there I traveled on my own for a few week through greater Europe. This initiated my infatuation with the freedom of traveling, particularly the freedom of traveling alone.

In 2008, my senior year, I participated in the experimental writing conference &Now as a panelist. I had the privilege of being chauffeur to Ishmael Reed and his wife, who attended. I also produced a thesis of fiction and non-fiction work. I graduated with BA degree in Creative Writing.

After graduating, I moved to Koreatown in Los Angeles where I lived for two years. I found work, fortuitously, in marketing for a café and catering company — the Elements Food Group LLC in Pasadena. During my time there, I helped to open a restaurant. This was my entrée into the culinary world, a world I have not since left, as I have made it a profession. I had also begun to work on my first novel, the first draft of which was completed in the initial six months of my time living in LA.

In 2010, I moved to Northern California where I lived in San Francisco for thirteen years. There, I continued to work in the food industry, of which I now have fourteen cumulative years of experience between San Francisco, Los Angeles, Traverse City in Northern Michigan, and New York City.

In 2013, I sold my car and used the money to backpack through Europe. I spent a few months in Italy, in Tuscany, where I lived in a medieval castle and worked on a vineyard through a harvest. There, I devoted myself to cooking and writing religiously.

I like to spend the time I have between my professional interests — which include writing — biking (which I much prefer to driving), traveling, singing karaoke, dancing, DJing parties, cooking, drawing, and reading. I read a lot. The books and authors which have influenced me are too many to name — Faulkner, Kafka, Borges, Bolaño, Eco, J. G. Ballard, Fowles, Lispector, Poe, Pessoa are a few. The same is true of films and directors.

I have best adapted to life in big cities. Most recently, I lived in New York City for three months and I plan to return to live more permanently sometime this year to further pursue my creative interests, which will include filmmaking.