My insightful wife, the one who knows me best, maintains an arsenal of words on standby to describe me to new friends, various psychotherapists, and the ever-changing animal packs that our teenage son runs with. Words like curmudgeonly. Obstreperous. Undomesticated. And sometimes, if she's in a good mood, effervescent. (I don't think she's ever called me patient.)

You have most likely read my writing. That is, if you've ever purchased a Lucid EV or applied for a credit card from US Bank, or signed up for a Medicare Advantage plan, you have encountered my work. For the past 30-or-so years, you see, I've committed the unpardonable sin of working in the advertising industry, which technically counts. But much like the author of Ikea instructional manuals doesn't brag about writing "Järvfjället," I don't really consider my paying career as the work of a true author, either. So let it be our little secret. In any case, the past 15 years have consisted more of criticizing other people's words than generating any of my own. Many good, a few bad. But not a one who could come up with a winner like "Ektorp," let alone "Toftan." I mean, say it out loud. It's clearly a grievous Swedish insult.

I still practice advertising, unfortunately, except that changing circumstances, at once horrible and liberating, left me with an overkill of time to just let my mind wander where it would from one day to the next. It was on one of those messy wanderings that I collided with an idea for a fairytale that has since blossomed into a whole collection. Those then flew off on a tangent (if that's the word—my poor recollection of geometry is rivaled only by my ineptness at the subject) which transformed into the beginnings of a book, much the way a toad becomes a prince, although in this case it could well be the opposite. That novel inspired a completely unrelated one that I am currently working on, along with several others I am desperate to get to before I collapse dead in a heap.

Everyone knows that anything with the words "Hudson Valley" in front of it sounds artsy and crafts-y, so of course I had to move here from the Bay Area during COVID. I'm not sure if it's rubbed off yet, the jury's still out.