My background is nothing to speak of other than the experiences that have shaped my life into this endless melancholy - as I said, nothing to speak of. I did not have the benefit of a fancy education in an institute of higher learning but learned plenty enough about life while living in cars, on sidewalks, on beaches, in vacant houses, etc. I have always had an insatiable urge to write and have done so for as long as I can remember. My great pain comes from needing so badly to be heard just once in my life - listened to by anyone. Really heard. My writing allows me to feel heard even though I rarely allow anyone to read it. The paper does not interrupt me to check its cell phone, the pen does not excuse itself to answer the phone to talk to someone more worthy of being heard. My brain does not have to stop while someone adds their two-cents-worth and staunches my flow. Writing is my voice and yet I still go unheard. My major influences are probably trite sounding when I lead off with J.D. Salinger - but I cannot change the way of things. Pablo Neruda, Rabindranath Tagore, John Steinbeck - anyone who manages to put just the right words into an order that grabs me from my soul and doesn't let go until I'm spent of emotion. I am influenced by anyone who can make music with words and those people are too many to list here. 

This is embarrassing...

Won honorable mention in a Writer's Digest magazine (the real, paper kind that used to get delivered by a letter carrier) contest by writing about a dating service for socks that have lost their mates in the laundry or by some other nefarious means. The prize: A copy of the Writer's Guide - back towards the end of the last century. (It's not as long ago as it sounds!)

Have been a 'most viewed' writer on Quora a few times but not enough so to maintain the badge by my name for more than a few months at a time.

I told you this was embarrassing...at least now, it is complete.