I am a writer and critic based in San Francisco. I grew up on the North Shore of Oahu, where I spoke "proper" English at home and Hawaiian creole (or "Pidgin English") at school and with friends. I'm sure that this "bilingual upbringing" gave me my obsession with language. I travel to Hawaii often for both personal and professional reasons, and to stay connected to that culture I study the hula here in California. (My husband says I will dance at the drop of a hat, but actually it's Hawaiian music that makes me want to move.) I left the islands to get a B.A. from Princeton, then spent a number of years writing fiction and drama, performing solo pieces in San Francisco coffeehouses and getting rejection letters. I loved journalism, so got a master's degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, then worked as a reporter and editor at several California newspapers before joining Wired magazine. There I began seriously dabbling in the idiosyncrasies of the mother tongue and wrote "Wired Style: Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age" in 1996, and then "Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose," in 1999. The books got me dubbed "Marion the Librarian on a Harley or E.B. White on acid.""Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch" completes the trilogy. I was still curious about the history of English--and indeed the evolution of language itself--and wanted to explore some of my ideas about how and why the verb is the linchpin of great writing. It's intended to be useful to professional writers and students, but also just fun and weird and interesting. I also wrote a series on the sentence for "Draft," in the New York Times Opinionator, and through my Web site I offer tips, techniques, and teaching materials to writers and teachers across the country and the world. I don't only write about language; I've covered Latino culture, Berkeley politics, ethnic-folk music, and Hawaiian sovereignty in publications as diverse as The Atlantic Monthly, Honolulu, National Geographic Adventure, and Smithsonian. My travel pieces and personal essays have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News, Miami Herald, San Francisco Chronicle, and numerous anthologies. The secret to the writing I like: an unusual combo of classy and sassy. The secret to the teaching I like: smart lessons and hilarious fun. The secret to the life I seek: giving of yourself to others.