Born in Russia, he is an organist and pianist, besides being a writer (who likes third-person). His favorite poet is William Carlos Williams and his favorite authors are Kazuo Ishiguro and Vladimir Nabokov. He is the editor for the literary magazine The Educator, he has been awarded two Scholastic Arts & Writing Gold Keys in Poetry, and his short story Last Walk won the 2014 BPP Writing Award. His poetry has been published by Eber & Wein, Creative Communication, The America Library of Poetry, and the Claremont Review. He loves Joni Mitchell and Stacey Kent and Paul Simon, whose lyrics are amongst his favorite.