Dan Gooder Richard’s love of adventure stories began as a boy. The first two novels his mother gave him at age ten are still on his shelf: Margaret Armstrong’s Trelawny and Herman Melville’s Typee. That boyhood love of a good tale was reinforced as Dan listened to his father weave cowboy yarns during family trips from Iowa to his father’s childhood home in Montana. After earning a bachelor’s in history Dan blasted water wells in India with the Peace Corps. Ski bummed in Taos Ski Valley. Motorcycled across the Sahara. Then earned his master’s in journalism at Missouri. Dan's middle name comes from his maternal grandfather: Leslie MacDonald Gooder who was a publisher in Chicago from the early 1910s through the 1950s. Dan carried on the family name in publishing. After he and his wife sold their marketing/publishing business in 2016 Dan turned his full-time attention to writing historical adventures. Dan lives in Virginia with his Swedish-speaking Finnish-born wife who also loves adventurous travels. Their 40+ year life/work partnership – without the loggerheads – inspired the Swift & Dancer Adventures.