A love of science fiction matured into a passion for science. If nothing else, he wanted to be able to get the science right in his own stories, so after school and weekend research during high school led naturally to a science major in college. He earned a Bachelor's degree in chemistry and teaching certification in both chemistry and physics. He settled into nurturing a teaching career and raising a daughter and did little writing for a while. His daughter was bitten by the writing bug at a young age (it must be genetic) and started writing her own stories. That got him going again, and soon he and his daughter were comparing story arcs and typing away on their computers.
His first story sale came early in 2009. He had been getting some positive feedback from Stan Schmidt for a while, and his writing was improving significantly under Schmidt's guidance. Selling a story to Analog, the magazine he had been reading since childhood, was a thrill like no other. There is quite a long wait from story acceptance to actual publication; it felt like an eternity until "Thanksgiving Day" finally appeared in the November issue. Since then, he has sold many stories and a few science fact articles to Analog and other magazines and anthologies. He has had a story translated into Chinese ("One Giant Leap") and another translated into Czech ("Usher"). Kepler's Laws is his first novel.
You can find Jay on Facebook (Jay Werkheiser), Twitter (@JayWerkheiser), and MeWe (Jay Werkheiser), and other social media platforms. He mainly posts updates about his writing, nerdy science memes, dad jokes, and general updates on his life. He also runs a blog (http://jaywerkheiser.blogspot.com/) called Resonance which he tries (and often fails) to keep updated.
