I was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1969, just in time for the rise of the Steelers dynasty and the decline of Big Steel. With two of the decade's epic sagas happening at my doorstep, it's no wonder I love a good story.
And I think many of us Yinzers are natural story tellers. In this old-world, small-town air, everybody you meet is your neighbor's sister-in-law's best friend from high school. Here, you never met a stranger: you learn to draw the narrative out of people, thrilling to another Pittsburgh Small World Story. It's no wonder, then, that I love a good true story, above all.
Because I went to a college without a writing major (the otherwise idyllic Washington University in St. Louis), I chose history as good training for researching and writing non-fiction narratives. After college, I discovered the great fun of informal science education, in demonstrating and explaining cool "wow factor" concepts to interested people all day long. Finally, in graduate school, I combined disciplines and interests and began publishing as a science writer.
No, I am not formally trained as a scientist. This is an advantage when writing about science for a general audience: I don't take their prior knowledge -- or interest -- for granted. Writing well is not a matter of expertise, it's a matter of explanation. And I get to enjoy learning new things all the time, an enthusiasm that I hope conveys in my writing. That is why I consider myself a generalist rather than a specialist, so that I can continually explore fields that are new to me.
