I'm a former bit-stacker with a predilection for word-stringing. Or, to put it another way, I slung code -- COBOL, FORTRAN and Assembler -- since the mainframe days, but was often tapped to do the docs, too, since writing well doesn't usually pair with programming chops. Crafting 'Shoals' pushed my coding gig into the trash, and launched phase 2 of my career. After a tech writing job at Microsoft in the early 90's I segued into running a small business, and then wrote the other 2 novels. Currently, my primary creative outlet is writing short stories for my WordPress blog.