Me, avoiding work at a cafe in Copacabana, Bolivia. It's a long story.

ABOUT ME: I think I meant to be a marine biologist. That was the idea, at least, that led me to my first internship, as a fish counter in the lab of excellent UC Santa Barbara marine scientist Milton Love (author of the book Probably More than You Wanted to Know About the Fishes of the California Coast). My duties as intern were to show up, sit down at a small light table, and put on a pair of gloves, while Dr. Love or his colleagues would dig back into the freezer and emerge to hand me a basketball-sized chunk of frozen inch-long silver fish. Then, using a pair of tweezers I would separate them out (the fish, not Dr. Love and his colleagues) based on whether they had two spots or three spots. I did this for about two months, after which I pretty much stopped trying to become a marine biologist and decided, what the hell, I'll just try and write for a living.

So that's me: professional writer, amateur marine enthusiast. A few years ago my wife and I moved to San Francisco, where we terrify our friends with harrowing stories of commute-by-Muni. I like hiking around in Glen Canyon Park with our small dog, keeping an eye on him so that he doesn't get eaten by rattlesnakes or bullied by gophers or anything.

Writing, for the most part, is very lonely. I sit in my office and just wish someone would email me: eric at darwinslepthere.com