On Writing
Many writers specialize, building whole careers out
of writing about gardening or astronomy or ping pong or knitting.
In a sense, I'm one of these, because most of my published work
involves speculative fiction (a useful term for covering science
fiction and fantasy under the same umbrella).
At the same time, I'm also a generalist. I
write (and publish) fiction, so far mostly of the short variety --
though be assured that I'll mention the novels here when they
eventually sell. I'm also a longtime book reviewer, with
extensive magazine and newspaper credits -- mostly but not entirely
in the SF field. Both of these categories are covered in more
detail on their own pages. And I've written magazine articles
profiling various SF/F television and media properties, though it's
been awhile since the most recent of those was published. (One
of the most enjoyable of these was a season-preview article on
Star Trek: Voyager for which I was able to interview Ethan "Neelix"
Phillips and Jeri Taylor, then the show's executive producer.)
Purely for amusement (so far, anyway), I write "filk"
lyrics, a sampling of which are assembled
here.
Like most freelance writers, I've also done my share
of odd, offbeat, and unusual projects. These have included
editing newsletters for local community groups, ghost-writing
speeches (no, I can't tell you who they were for), designing and
publishing the memory book for a 50th high school class reunion, and
editing a series of historical reports regarding possible names for
new public schools.