I’m Chris Lake, a middle-aged writer and marketing consultant currently residing in Mesa, Arizona, with my wife, two boys, two black Labs, and a Persian cat.

You can guess how the hierarchy works around here.

I was born in Wichita, Kansas, and spent many a summer day there, but I was raised in Champaign, Illinois, home of the University of Illinois and Parkland College. After high school I attended both U of I and Parkland, where my love of English and creative writing was kindled.

In the early 1990s I relocated to Atlanta, Georgia, where I held a few jobs in publishing and creative services before getting caught up in the Internet explosion around 1997. I was a web developer for a couple of dot-com startups and then tried my luck as a studio photographer, just in time for the digital revolution to render my film-only operation a bust.

Fortunately, that failure was a turning point that led me back to writing as a freelancer. Combined with my web development skills, copywriting gave me a comfortable enough living and also afforded me the free time to finish a business degree online.

In 2005 I moved to Phoenix and soon met my wife. After a three-week honeymoon touring the British Isles, we had two baby boys within three years. I’ve been very fortunate to play Mr. Mom to them as they’ve grown up.

Along with my freelance writing and consulting, I’ve developed a few entrepreneurial ventures of my own, including a success poster based on the work of Napoleon Hill (https://17principlesposter.com), a dayplanner designed for entrepreneurs and other self-employed folks (https://betterdayplanner.com), and a fine art gallery for aviation enthusiasts (https://classicairprints.com).

In my free time I enjoy reading, radio-control airplanes, tabletop historical miniature wargaming, and (very rarely) a slow round of golf.