I grew up in Chicago on overcooked vegetables and the failures of the Chicago Cubs. My mother wanted me to be a dentist, I wanted to be an engineer. Four unhappy years at Lane Tech high school struggling with science and at Jewish summer camps writing plays, newsletters and lyrics for musicals convinced me to switch majors. But it was only when I got to the  University of Chicago, surrounded by people who spent their time in books, that I discovered what it meant to think, talk, write, and read. I moved on to Stanford for graduate school, better weather, and the Sixties. I got involved with politics, protest, and teaching. After a childhood when I blushed every time someone noticed me, the classroom was rough going at first. But I've  spent most of my life since learning that teaching was a, if not the, vocation I was born for.

I spent three decades teaching at UC, Santa Cruz, where I wrote critical books, articles and book reviews while I raised my three children. I retired to devote myself to imagining tales tall and short, and learning about paragraphs and sentences. I've written two novels, several stories, and essays. I've lived long enough to watch the Cubs win the World Series. Never much for winners, I've switched allegiance  to the Oakland Athletics. I've traveled, become a grandfather, and learned a lot about writing I never knew as a teacher of writing. I figure those lessons are worth my time.