miscellaneous words
Photograph of a nursery orchid, Big Island Hawaii.
short stories, magazine articles and technical writing
Both parents were writers. One became a programmer, but she started off as a writer. And the woman who showed up to help with the raising, she was a ninety-odd year-old retired English teacher; an anglophile with a passion for Shakespeare and a history in turn-of-the-century Idaho mining camps and World-War-I Paris to boot. The writing bug was inevitable, perhaps regrettable, but inevitable nonetheless. The ability to turn a pretty phrase has always been one of the hallmarks of good communication. Add to that the ability to fashion a story out of disparate facts and you are starting to get somewhere. And when those facts which read to the average person as a mess of acronyms and unintelligible subtleties and can be distilled into a compact and comprehensible narrative with the properties of decent literature, you are really on to something. Just toss in some good video, photography and illustration and you have a solid approach to conveying what needs to be conveyed.
Linked to this page will be several examples of writing, ranging from a series of short stories, to several published nature, environmental and travel related magazine articles, to some thoughts on technical writing. These should appear as I find time to put them together, and in the case of much of it, to edit things that were written a long time ago.
The short stories are hobbled together in three volumes written over the course of around thirty years. I've always had a love for the short story form, preferring fiction as the best vehicle for conveying truth, but not having the fortitude or patience to create an entire novel. None of them have gone very far. Almost none of them have been seen until now.
Almost all of them are controversial for one reason or another. I think many are pretty good in the style of the writing that I most enjoy. And like piles of old photographs, it is fun to put them on the internet.
The magazine articles are all from the naughts and early teens and focus on locations in Utah, Arizona and Montana. They all made their way into relatively small local publications, primarily Utah Outdoors, now a casualty of the internet displacement of print media. They were all fun to do, usually involving backpacking into some obscure but enchanting place. Most were accompanied with my photography. I just need to figure out which box in the basement they ended up in.
Finally, the technical writing. I've done much more of that than any other writing. Often it is written for readers who possess the same obtuse vocabulary as the writer. The best of it is written for the layman but accurately conveys the technical detail, conclusions and rational for the conclusions. It is very important that the writing be truthful, consistent with the facts, and complete, not ommiting facts that detract from the conclusions drawn. There are also a bevy of reasons why work done for clients can't be shown in a public forum. The most important of these are non-disclosure aggreements. Also taken out of context, technical writing is often not a fun read. I'm choosing to go with a synopsis of my approach instead of any actual text.