“I write for the fun of creating the stories that I would want to read.  Often inspired by a real place or event, followed by “what if” or “what would happen” speculation, I enjoy exploring the peaks of human tenacity as well as the depths of our folly.  Often, at the same time; situations where everybody thinks they know the right thing to do, but nobody actually does.”

A graduate of CSULB, Tom Butler has taught English at the high school level since 2005. He is an active member of several writers groups and associations, and has designed courses and curriculum to help support young writers.

Tom’s first novel, Some Experience Preferred, a humorous crime thriller, was published in 2019 and was well received by critics and readers. Described by one critic as, "easily the best book I’ve reviewed in a year," Some Experience Preferred was a strong debut from an indie publisher.

His second full length publication, Two Guns 1 Mile, a collection of historical short fiction set around the real-life ghost town of Two Guns, Arizona, launched in May of 2021. Nominated for the Indie Author Project 2021 Awards, and accepted into the California State Library system.

Just One A Them Things, due out in Fall of 2025, is a crime novel, taking place over the course of one day in the summer of 1978, in Long Beach, California.  Union agent Sheen McGinty is surreptitiously drawn into an FBI sting operation which is attempting to forge a RICO link between the Teamsters and the Mafia. Inspired by true events and real people, at its heart this is a book about corruption.  A time and place when everything was changing, but nothing really changed.  Old empires were on the precipice of collapse; enemies conspired to expedite the decay; others waited at the fringe to build anew with the rubble.  And everyone, new and old, was certain that what they did was right. That their actions, no matter what, were justified.  After all, everyone knows cognovit Dominus qui sunt eius.  It’s just one a them things.