R.M. Usatinsky was born in Chicago on June 20th 1963, a second generation American whose great-grandparents came from small villages near Kiev, Russia (now Ukraine) and Lithuania in the early 1920s.
He attended De Witt Clinton Elementary School and Stephen T. Mather High in West Rogers Park and DePaul University, where he earned a BFA in Playwriting (1992) and MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies (1994).
Beginning at an early age writing poems, skits and songs, Usatinsky's creative direction moved to the stage when he became involved in community theater in his native Chicago. He later went on to sing in youth choirs and playing in bands. After high school he moved out west, first forming the power punk trio The Untouchables in Phoenix, and later fronting the L.A. band Cafe Society from 1982-87.
He moved to Spain in the summer of 1996 and became the first foreign journalist to collaborate with three local newspapers (Levante-EMV, Valencia Hui, Hoja de la Tarde) providing English-language content in the form of a weekly news supplement. Relocating to Liverpool, England, where he lived from 2008-9, he was the Merseyside correspondent for the London-based "Jewish Chronicle." Moving to The Netherlands in 2010, Usatinsky continues his 20-year career as an educator, lecturing in Business English at an internationally renowned hotel management school in The Hague.
A father of four, Mr. Usatinsky is the author of a thousand poems, 20 short stories, 13 plays, dozens of magazine and newspaper articles, one novella and about 50 songs. His first full-length novel, "A River Runs Wild," is currently being released in serial form on the author's official Facebook Page (www.facebook.com/rmusatinsky).
