Richard Payette received his Honours B.A. in English at the University of Toronto, Victoria College and shortly after earned his Bachelor of Education degree at Nipissing University. He began his teaching career working with emotionally disturbed children, then moved to Waterloo County where he taught juvenile delinquents for several years then accepted a position teaching English and Media Studies at the high school level. He has been teaching for 18 years and continues to do so. In his spare time he writes fiction and has completed 5 novels, numerous short stories and a screenplay. He is currently working on another screenplay.
His interest in spiritualism began in mid-life when he realized that his career, his family, and his writing could only offer him so much. There was something still missing. He took a semester off teaching and wrote a novel to explore the spiritual realm and inadvertently stumbled upon a world that reconnected him to himself and to others, a world that transcended religion, race, and culture, a world in which we all are one. SHEN offered him the opportunity to share this learning with others the world over and it is his hope that all humans will be one day united with one universal purpose, constant self-improvement.