About Jeff Cates

Rising Star Award winner Jeff Cates first caught the writing bug in the eighth grade when he helped to create his school’s first annual. His senior year in high school, he ruffled a few feathers when he wrote an entire April Fool’s edition of the school newspaper and the senior class prophecy.

His interests include archaeology, outdoor survival, gardening, and the supernatural. Jeff teaches others to write outside of their comfort zones to become better writers. He even wrote a romance novel to prove this. In addition to his science fiction, fantasy, and horror, he writes westerns, indigenous tales, mysteries, mainstream, and children’s stories.

A lifetime of the abnormal, wrangling runaway livestock, teaching sixth grade, and fighting forest fires has led to many harrowing adventures. These experiences have given him material for scores of stories and helped him win many writing contests.

If you enjoy thrilling tales, check out The Reb Riley Files about near-future unusual and paranormal crimes rookie cop Reb Riley and her partners face on the streets of Hollywood. Tales from the Rook’s Branch Tavern is a twenty-one-story collection of adventures in the Asteroid Belt in the 23rd century. The Dread Naughts is a pulse-pounding adventure about an ordinary man and his quirky animal companion, Poru, are on a dangerous quest to win the hand of a princess on a world run by women. His first children’s book, The Honey Hunters, is about an orphaned Native American girl who wants to become the first female honey hunter in the eight clans that live in the region. His fifth book, The Boy Who Loved Dragons, is a tender and touching story of a boy who dreams of dragons watching over him while he sleeps. He inherits his mother’s talent as an artist, and the dragon of his dreams that he paints looks like it will come alive.

Nearly eighty of his paid stories and articles have been published in North America and Europe. Jeff leads the Valley Writers Group in Central California, and he’s a longtime member of Critters, the online writers’ group.

Jeff lives with his wife, Marie, and two spoiled little rescue dogs, Pepper and Valerie. The fruit trees he planted reduce their trips to the grocery store. They give away hundreds of pounds of oranges each year. When God helps them to have an abundant crop, it’s a good reason to share.