Hey, cheers, or let's pull up this note. Like I said, we've I told you a couple days ago,

we've never written down a list of questions for anyone that's come on the podcast. I feel

like we we kind of needed to for a moment like this. So yeah, I'm not going to read from

this. I'll try. I'll do my best. I'm sure I'll have more to say about some of those than

than others, but what the hell? I'm just going to ask when did you move here? This

we're in Santa Fe right now. I don't know if anyone listening knows the land. I moved here

right at the end of 1979. You know, I was born in Bayon, New Jersey. I spent, you know,

pretty much the first 18 years of my life there until I went away to college,

which was at Northwestern Chicago area. And I was there five years, getting a bachelor's

and a master's. And then I stayed in Chicago even after I graduated from Northwestern

for a number of years until about 76 when I took a teaching job in Dubuque, Iowa. And I

went there for about three and a half years teaching journalism at a small Catholic girls college

in Dubuque. I saw my first story in 1971 and continued to sell stories throughout the 70s,

more and more, and getting more attention. But I always had to have a day job.

You know, for a couple of years in the early 70s, I was a Vista volunteer doing alternative

service. And then I directed chess tournaments. I'd done a lot of playing chess in high school and

college. But the money I earned was not as a player, but as a tournament director.

There was this big chess boom in America when Bobby Fisher defeated board. So that was a good

job for me because, you know, normally writers, they're working a day job five days a week and

then they write two days a day every weekend. For me, it was the reverse. The tournaments were always

on the weekends. So I worked on Saturday and Sunday and then I had all five days to write.

But I still wasn't making enough to live off at even at a relatively poverty level.

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