About The Author

        Senior Network Architect, Author

Just before college, Ray won first place in the "National Pen Women Competition" for his  fictional short story, Distinction, as well as winning second place in the New York "Best of City - The Written  Word". While attending  college, Ray Melnik's course on existential  literature opened a whole new world for him with the study of writers such as Sartre and Camus.
 

He pursued a musical career as a singer and lyricist after leaving college. In the early 1980s he was the lead singer for One Hand Clap and then Fine Malibus with Steve Stevens, who later  went on to be guitarist and song writer for Billy Idol.  In the late 1980s and  early 1990s, Ray was the recording engineer and co-owner of MANNIK Productions, a recording  studio in the Snug Harbor Cultural  Center,  Staten Island, New York.  In addition to lyrics, Ray, wrote a monthly  column about pro audio for a local music trade magazine, American Liverpool.
 

Later moving  into the field of technology as a network  engineer, he wrote for the  technology panel of a regional newspaper, Times Herald Record,  and was the  primary writer of articles based on home technology for  the website New Technology Home. Ray is currently a Senior Network Architect in New York City and lives in the lower Hudson Valley, New York.