As with most writers, I share the fundamental dread of stepping out into the limelight while at the same time realizing that if I don't, I'm less likely to sell books. Therefore, a few highlights:I'm a military brat - son of an Air Force officer who eventually retired as a colonel, by the time I graduated from high school I had moved ten times, leaving me perhaps with a sense of both impermanence about life and an understanding about cultural diversity which has shaped my perspectives on how I view others.I was an early computer geek - I cut my teeth on an Apple II+ and a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 1 in the mid-70s, was programming assembly language apps by the time I was sixteen, and was learning the rudiments of tensor calculus my senior year of high school. Unfortunately, by the time I hit college, the US was in the grips of a recession and my well meaning but idiotic guidance counselors were telling me that I didn't want to go into computers - there was no future there. So I ended with a BS degree in Physics (yup, definitely BS) with mediocre grades after having spent the entire four years sequestered in the computer labs writing code and learning the programmer's craft on my own.In my spare time I published an independent fantasy magazine - Arcane, which eventually had a readership of about 300 subscribers, and got my first taste of the publishing world. These themes would intertwine for the rest of my life. I became involved in desktop publishing and (later) multimedia, had my first professional magazine sale in 1992, my first book published in 1995, and my first editorial job that same year. I've been writing and programming ever since, with eighteen books and several hundred articles and blogs since then.