Common advice to writers is “write what you know,” so Frank’s life and mine have parallels:

• Like Frank, I’m visually impaired and spent my first three years of school in a boarding school for the blind.
• Like Frank, my father was transferred to Switzerland where I spent my high-school years.
• Like Frank, I earned an MA in physics at Boston University then left after two years in their Ph.D. program.
• Like Frank, I spent a good bit of my adult life pursuing psychological and spiritual awareness.
• Like Frank, I worked intermittently as a software engineer between bouts of creativity.

• Unlike Frank, I wasn’t an autistic child (though we had traits in common).
• Unlike Frank, I’m now retired and living in Thailand so I can write full-time.

I emphasize, though, that both novels are works of fiction. While aspects of Frank’s life parallel mine, the novels are not autobiographical. All characters depicted in them are creations of my imagination. Any resemblance to real people or gods, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

That being said, here’s the drier version of my life, condensed for your convenience:

• I was born in Philadelphia, PA.
• My first three years of school were at Overbrook School for the Blind, a boarding school where I attended classes for the “partially sighted.”
• My next three years were at Penn Charter, a (sighted) Philadelphia private school that was kind enough to give my brother and me scholarships.
• When I was twelve my father joined IBM and we moved to Poughkeepsie, NY.
• Seventh grade was my introduction to public school – a 220V culture shock.
• When I was fourteen IBM transferred my father to Zurich, Switzerland where I attended Institute Minerva.
• When I was eighteen we returned to the U.S. and I started Lehigh University, majoring in Engineering Physics.
• I left school for a year in the middle of my junior year to work at Bell Labs in Whippany, NJ.
• I went to Boston University graduate school and received a master’s degree in physics, then left after two years in their Ph.D. program.
• At 26 I moved to Los Angeles and changed my life. Between bouts of creativity I worked intermittently as a software engineer to earn a living.
• Along with the bouts of creativity, I strenuously pursued psychological and spiritual awareness.
• In 2012, I retired and moved to Thailand to write full-time.

Some of my Bouts of Creativity:

• I had two stories published in Illume, a short-lived but magnificently designed literary magazine.
• I helped write and edit the text for the computer game, Timothy Leary’s Mind Mirror, in collaboration with Dr. Leary. The game was published by Electronic Arts.
• I wrote the screenplay for the adult film Tangerine, filmed in 1978.
• I wrote original music used in the adult film 3 A.M. and performed on the soundtrack.
• I wrote songs and sang in coffee houses on both coasts.