Autobiography

I grew up one of the luckiest kids on the planet, on a farm in the awesome hills of Western Pennsylvania. We had horses, cows, goats, chickens, pigs, dogs, cats, cousins, and a great big Amish-built barn complete with rope swings in the hay mow.

We had some thirty apple trees on the farm, as well as strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, black cherries, plums, and grapes. We had a garden. We had creeks and swamps and a tiny pond, woods and fields and a river we weren’t supposed to go near. My brothers and I played everywhere and did things that really should have gotten us killed but somehow never did, and we had so much fun.

When I wasn’t rampaging across the countryside, I was reading. Little House on the Prairie, Swiss Family Robinson, The Good Master, A Swiftly Tilting Planet (yes, I loved A Wrinkle in Time. But I loved A Swiftly Tilting Planet more), Prydain, Narnia, Andre Norton.

Oh, Andre Norton. What worlds she opened for me! And then came Elfquest, and I realized, as I went from the graphic novels to the Marvel issues to the black and white WARP comics because that was what we had—it hit me that someone wrote this. Someone created the entire world I was immersed in. Someone being, of course, the marvelous Wendy Pini. (I met her a couple years ago. ZOMG! Awesome writer-person and I met her!)

Laugh if you like at my epiphany, but before that I was immersed in the stories. Not in how they came to be. But holding black and white Elfquest, having read Richard Pini’s columns in the backs of the Marvel issues—I knew what had been done, and I wanted to do it too.

Then I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark and I wanted to be an archaeologist instead.

Eventually, though, I realized that archaeologists don’t live like Indiana Jones, and since then all I’ve wanted to do is write. One awesome thing about writing is that I have an excuse to learn everything. Especially if one writes SF, or wants to write believable fantasy–I need to know biology. And ecology. Physics. Geology. Geography comes in handy, especially when stealing a country. (What? Spain was just lying there, and I needed it!) Sociology, anthropology, history, opera, ice skating, gender issues, fertility rites, astronomy, astrology, cryptozoology…

So, uh…yeah. That’s me. How about you?