I'm a life-time writer. That doesn't mean I've made a living at it. I'm disabled, due to a congenital bone disease—something called "Osteogenesis Imperfecta. " It's called "O.I." among the cognostii, or "brittle bones," in plain English. My bones break very easily, due to an inability to form collagens in the bone structure. I'm broken a lot of bones in my life. It could be worse: I have Type I O.I.—this is the least severe. Some of the more severe forms can be fatal at birth. My O.I. is bad enough, however.
I have a bachelor's degree from a Jesuit college down in Los Angeles, the city of my birth. I did some graduate work along the line, but never completed an advanced degree. Once in a while, I speculate on what might have happened if I had got a master's degree. But its purely speculation. I always wanted "to be a writer." And, I am. I write, therefore I am a writer. I philosophize, therefore I'm a philosopher. We are what we do, when we do it. It took me a long time to satisfy myself that I don't have to get paid to be a writer, anymore than I have to get paid to fish to be an angler; or get paid to think to be a thinker. I realize this is kind of unamerican. Tough.
I live in Bend, Oregon. Up until last April, I lived in Portland. Before then, I lived in the Arizona desert for a while, and for years before that down in the boonies of southern Oregon. Before then, Ashland, Oregon; before that, San Francisco, various stints in Mexico and Canada, and so on and so forth, finally, back to L.A. before I for ever escaped it.
That was then, this is now. This is my life. As I go on, I'll write about more: the books and writers who mean a lot to me, politics, life with a disability, relationships...
One of my early hero-types, models, was the American writer, Henry Miller. Miller had a great ability to always land on his feet. At one point, after the collapse of Europe, he found himself stranded, nearly pennyless, back in America. He put a letter into a literary magazine of the time, telling people if they sent him a donation, he'd send them back a watercolor. Hmm—well, I don't do watercolors, but I write...