Architecture, cities, nature, environment, prehistoric civilizations, the American Northwest and Southwest, and, of course, boats—these are the things I look into and write about. It looks like a jumble because it is one, a disorderly library of passions heaped around an insatiably curious mind.

I’ve been a professional journalist and author since the age of 15. I have a journalism degree from Texas Tech University, a graduate-level browse through architecture history at the University of Arizona, and 17 years of reporting and editing experience in daily newspapers. Since I escaped salaried labor in 1987, I’ve written about 600 magazine articles for publications such as the Los Angeles Times Magazine, Arizona Highways, Sunset, American Heritage, and Architecture. I still maintain an inky foothold in print newspapers—an institution that I fiercely believe in—as architecture critic of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. To visit a selected archive, click “Articles.”

The Year of the Boat: Beauty, Imperfection, and the Art of Doing It Yourself (Sasquatch Books 2008) is my newest book. There have been 14 others, all nonfiction, including Frank Lloyd Wright in Arizona (Rio Nuevo 2006), The Navajo Long Walk (Rio Nuevo 2004) and Nature’s Extremes: Eight Seasons in a Southwestern Land (Arizona Highways 2000). For a bibliography, reviews, and ordering information, click “The Books.”

Since 1998, I’ve taught nonfiction writing in the University of Washington Educational Outreach Department. Beginning in 2008, I’m also teaching nonfiction in the Whidbey Island Writers Association’s MFA program. For a look at current and upcoming classes, click “News and Reviews,” then find “Classes.”

My wife, Patty, and I live on Whidbey Island, Washington, where the salty moat of Possession Sound provides us with just the right degree of separation from Seattle’s urban commotion. An occasional annoyance is the question, “Did you move to the island to retire?” Resolutely not. Patty is a uniquely gifted oncology nurse and musician; she commutes to work at a cancer clinic in Seattle. I write and teach full-time. In the evenings I build boats (Click “News and Reviews,” then “Next boat”); on weekends we lead or join kayak expeditions with the Seattle Sea Kayak Club or work on our nascent sailing skills. It’s the perfect place for insatiable enthusiasms of every kind.