I was born in London, England, to poor but honest parents who loved going for long walks, preferably in the rain. After discovering at college that I liked not only pickled onions but even Marmite, I knew it was time to leave while I still could. I have lived in Vermont since 1980, though to be honest I did start a cricket club. I'm the director of the Professional Writing Program at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont, a longtime essayist for National Public Radio and the author of all kinds of things, some of which show up elsewhere on Amazon. The serious part of me founded Writers Without Borders, a non-profit dedicated to teaching writing skills to public health workers in the developing world, and the Endangered Alphabets project, in which I draw attention to the importance of cultural preservation by carving texts in endangered languages in beautiful pieces of wood. The ambitious part of me created the Champlain College Publishing Initiative, a project to engage undergraduates in the process of publishing in the twenty-first century. The active part of me plays a lot of soccer and tennis. In my spare time I wonder about potential military applications for Marmite.