D. August Baertlein
For most of my working life I wrote software by day and stories by night, a combo made even stranger by the fact that I started my adult life as a marine biologist/geneticist. Even though I got my Ph.D. ever so long ago I still love science, especially the biological variety, and my fiction is full of it. Science, I mean.
For my last science gig I worked at U.C. Berkeley in the Plant Pathology department where I genetically engineered both bacteria and plants for greater frost tolerance in crop plants.
When our son came along, my spending long hours in the lab no longer seemed like a good choice for this family. I took up computer programming, and wrote crazy stories as a way to release creative energy. My first published novel, Synapse, was twenty years in the making, with other projects waxing and waning throughout the process. I'm hoping more will follow.
I recently retired from IBM to pursue writing and working with wildlife at a local zoo. I have one favorite (only) son, one wonderful (only) daughter-in-law, one dog, one cat and one pretty great (only) husband. Since 2003 I've lived with most of the above list in a one-bedroom cabin in the middle of a Southern California wilderness. (See banner photo.) It's a grand adventure, and on occasion a nightmare. While bears, mountain lions and coyote packs loom fearsome in the imagination, it’s mice, ants and septic systems that cause the most day-to-day anguish.
We love it.
For my last science gig I worked at U.C. Berkeley in the Plant Pathology department where I genetically engineered both bacteria and plants for greater frost tolerance in crop plants.
When our son came along, my spending long hours in the lab no longer seemed like a good choice for this family. I took up computer programming, and wrote crazy stories as a way to release creative energy. My first published novel, Synapse, was twenty years in the making, with other projects waxing and waning throughout the process. I'm hoping more will follow.
I recently retired from IBM to pursue writing and working with wildlife at a local zoo. I have one favorite (only) son, one wonderful (only) daughter-in-law, one dog, one cat and one pretty great (only) husband. Since 2003 I've lived with most of the above list in a one-bedroom cabin in the middle of a Southern California wilderness. (See banner photo.) It's a grand adventure, and on occasion a nightmare. While bears, mountain lions and coyote packs loom fearsome in the imagination, it’s mice, ants and septic systems that cause the most day-to-day anguish.
We love it.
