Charles J Petrie, Jr. holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from UT Austin and is retired from Stanford University where he had been an Associate Professor and Senior Research Scientist. He then built an off-grid home on his property in Texas. He also did consulting and guest professorships in Europe until the pandemic. In addition, he worked at Burning Man, retiring as manager of their airport. Now he lives with his new pit bull pup, Toby, in the woods, occasionally venturing to travel back to California and Germany where he keeps motorcycles and friends. 

Dark Texas is his first novel.