Jeff Van Valer

Jeff Van Valer's creative writing career started when he went away to summer camp and found weekly letters home a required activity. After much practice at this, he sent letters of his own accord (using rolls and rolls of stamps) to family and friends.

He dabbled in stories in high school and college and even wrote a novel after college graduation. The novel's story was grand (he says), as long as the reader committed to the eighty-page expository seminar that was the story's beginning. Not surprisingly, readers didn't commit to the cause, and this first effort has not been published.

Later, he attended medical school and residency and has been at work as a physician ever since. He practices neurology and sleep medicine in Muncie, Indiana, where he serves as an assistant professor in the Indiana University School of Medicine's Department of Neurology. He lives with his wife, Luci; two kids, Martha and Joe; and that cliche of American suburbia, the golden-doodle, a very sweet dog named Fletcher.

Mountain biking and playing drums are two of his passions. Creative writing serves to pervade and control much of his free thought and time. It breathes life into him like no regular hobby ever could. He has recently published The Light in the Trees, a coming-of-age thriller and plans to release the novel's successor in mid-summer, 2018.