When did you first start writing?
I remember writing stories in elementary school... My friend and I would write one-page stories on one side of our blue-lined notebook paper -- the text, written in longhand, had to fill up that space -- and draw an illustration for it in the white space at the top of the page. Then we would show each other our latest writings and comment on them. Pretty constructive discussions as best I can remember, never critical or derisive which is notable given our ages. Fun stuff. We never came up with an infrastructure use for the three-ring-binder holes to the left side, however. That was my best friend John Lay who was killed in Vietnam a bit less than ten years later.
What's the story behind your latest book?
This is a how-to book on dealing with disability, specifically Multiple Sclerosis and wheelchairs. It came about as a result of my wife's heroic struggle against Primary Progressive MS (the worst kind) and the various shortcuts and workarounds Diane and I have discovered, or invented or blundered into over the years. Nobody tells you the daily issues to come, what is likely to happen, how best to go about getting help, how to deal with these things -- so our book tries to fill some small corner of that void. We hope it is helpful to others facing these challenges.
Read more of this interview.