Makansi resides in the city of St. Louis with his wife (and business partner), his two daughters, and two dogs. By day, he is an electricity industry technology and management consultant. He wrote poetry in the 1980s, an environmental and energy newsletter in the 1990s, and he was the Chief Editor for Power magazine from 1994 to 2000 and was with the publication since 1981. He claims to have visited more power plants worldwide than anyone else on the planet (he has been challenged on this only once). Lately, he is a member of an ad hoc fiction writers group, which meets weekly for commentary, food, coffee, and booze (maybe not in that order), and is active at the Zoetrope on-line writers workshop.