Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} I was born in a small town near Boston, where I was raised on a steady diet of family, politics, and the Red Sox. After graduating from Georgetown University, I spent two years in the Army, including a year in Viet Nam in the 1st Infantry Division. After I got out, I worked for the Federal government in Washington, D.C. until retirement. I have volunteered as a literacy tutor, a hot line listener and as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) for children in need of assistance. I currently reside in a small city just far enough from Washington DC to be somewhere else. I began blogging in the late 1980's and have been writing steadily ever since. Most of that writing concerned politics, but then one day I woke up and realized that I had been listening to the same arguments between right and left for the last 50 years and was tired of it. At the same time I grew interested in science and the natural world. Call it my attempt to reconcile religion and rationality. Eventually, I got old enough and bold enough to gaze at my own inner world. That is when I began thinking about writing a novel. My first novel, "The Magpie's Secret," is what I think of as a thriller with a heart. There is a suspense plot wrapped around the story of a man who had lost interest in living until he was told that he might be dying at the hands of a professional killer. In his search for answers he rediscovers a connection to his own life and to the people in it, including a new love he finds in the most unlikely place.