Craig Leener grew up on the hardscrabble basketball courts of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, California.
Despite being relatively earthbound most of the time, Craig has long maintained a keen interest in space travel. Of course, he’s also a big fan of basketball, having immersed himself in the game since his youth as a player, coach, referee, fan and, later in life, as a sportswriter.
Craig has an above-average ability to go to his left and maintains a solid perimeter jumper. His free-throw percentage on his backyard home court is an implausible 87 percent — and to this day, that number remains 100-percent unverified. And what the author lacks in foot speed, leaping ability and defense, he more than makes up for in court smarts and postgame snacks.
Craig is a lifelong opponent of the instant replay in sports. He maintains this contrarian point of view because of the intrinsic value he places on the human element’s potential to influence the outcome of athletic competition, inadvertently or otherwise.
Craig holds degrees from Los Angeles Valley College and California State University, Northridge. He sits on the board of directors of CSUN’s Journalism Alumni Association and serves as the organization’s director of scholarships.
Craig worked for many years in the entertainment industry in film operations, postproduction technical services and human resources management before finding his true calling as a sportswriter and young-adult novelist.
Although Craig possesses an innate curiosity about what might reside beyond the heavens, he lives in the suburbs of Los Angeles with his truly otherworldly wife, Andrea.
“There’s No Basketball on Mars” is Craig’s fourth young-adult novel, following the publication of the “Zeke Archer Basketball Trilogy.” The author and his publishing company, Green Buffalo Press, will donate a portion of royalties from the new book to Exceptional Minds, an academy and studio that prepares young adults on the autism spectrum for careers in animation, visual effects, 3D gaming, and other related fields in the entertainment industry. The organization is headquartered in Los Angeles.