As incoming editor of Abyss & Apex, let me take this opportunity to introduce myself as I look back on the journey that brought me here.
I was born in Palo Alto, California. My father was a Biochemist with a PhD from Stanford University. When I was three, we moved to San Fernando Valley. When my father took me down the street to an open field to look at the stars, I felt the nearness of other worlds. Afterwards, I couldn’t get enough books about stars and planets, especially Saturn. One night I dreamt that two Saturnians met me at the top of the old wooden slide in the empty lot beside our house. To my disappointment, they looked just like humans in silver armor.
When I was seven, the family moved to Copenhagen, Denmark. I was excited about learning a different language, but a little disappointed that Danish didn’t have a different writing system like Chinese. At least it had three special letters—Æ, Ø, and Å.
We moved to Brussels in time for the 1958 World’s fair. The year after that, we were in Charlottesville, Virginia, while my father taught at the University of Virginia. Three years later, we moved back to Copenhagen. A couple years after that, my father got a Fulbright scholarship and went to teach in Chiang Mai, Thailand. But my mother was tired of traveling, so she took me and my younger sister and brother back to her parents’ house in California.
My grandfather had a ranch where I spent summers working as a ranch hand—milking cows and riding horses.
After graduating from Beverly Hills High School, I started college in Oregon, but I couldn’t sell my advisor on my ideas for integrating mathematics and literature, and I was denied re-registration after my sophomore year.
Having acquired a VW Bug, I drove across the country with my friend Trish. Trish wanted to check out Boston University, where she would start graduate school, and I was meeting up with a New York City writer who liked the fantasy novel I’d sent to the publisher where he worked as a slush reader. After a short stay, Trish and I drove back home. But the next year I drove back to New York City with another Oregonian friend, and this time I got a job and an apartment.
I made two more cross-country drives with my cat, Betsy, before deciding to settle on the East Coast. I married, had kids, divorced, and held jobs as a COBOL programmer and as an artist before acquiring a store that sold personalized children’s furniture. I closed the store, on my daughter’s advice, just before the 2008 recession.
Since retirement, I’ve been busy with my local writing group and building my fictional universe, the Galactic Mindsea Empire. I also compete in road races for my local running club, swim in triathlon relays, and play Irish tunes on the viola to accompany my son, who plays the violin. I assisted Wendy with slush reading and illustrations for Abyss & Apex for several years before beginning my apprenticeship as editor. She and I worked together on the transition throughout 2024. I see taking the helm of Abyss&Apex as the next step on my journey to other worlds.
