The festival aims to create and maintain a community, and so the main theme this year is for everyone to write an "introduction to me and my blog" post. (Actual quote from the organizer: "While I am not going to make you wear nametags to orientation, it would be lovely if you spent some time with that very first blog post to introduce yourself and the kind of content that you create.")
About me:
Professionally, I'm a biologist and a writer, with deep experience as an editor (the curating kind). I like to work in intense scientific environments, alongside people doing the kind of research that intends to change the world. I haven't worked in a lab for more than 10 years but I sometimes daydream about going back somehow.
I like to write and think about all aspects of biology, especially about evolution, genetics, and neuroscience.
I live in Tucson, Arizona with my best friend. We saw Raiders of the Lost Ark on our first date, in the theater—you do the math. We have four grown kids who are four of the very best people I know. We have two grandkids and as much as I adore both of them, I am very impatient to take them on bike rides and to go to baseball games with them. That's a few years off.
My hobbies include cycling, writing, film, craft beer, cooking, and trying to build community. I'm a Star Wars fan, baseball lover, extrovert, and rebel. I'm an apostate and hope to see others get free from religion. I worship Shakespeare. I have a tattoo depicting Darwin's first sketch of the Tree of Life and his words "I think."
My communities:
The Blaugust community includes many gaming enthusiasts, so I should out myself as a longtime player of Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. It's a turn-based, character-collecting game and the only game I play (besides a puzzle game called Mr. Mine that's just mouse-clicking). I'm an officer and founding member of a guild called Uncle Owen's Backyard BBQ, and yes that's funny and yes we joke around a lot but we are serious competitors and enjoy going up against other guilds. One of the guild leaders is a chap my age who lives in the mountains of Vermont and I'd love to visit him sometime.
I organize very simple events (weekly Trivia Night at a Tucson cider house) with Tucson Atheists, and weekly lectures/meetings with Secular AZ. I am on the board of directors of the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard & MIT. I contribute to discussions of science and faith at Peaceful Science.
I work at Life Science Editors with a group of brilliant scientific editors that includes numerous former colleagues at Cell Press. My workplace is a coworking community in downtown Tucson; I commute there by bike every day.
What I write about:
Quintessence of Dust was founded 17 years ago during a sabbatical, and has always been about biology in the context of human belief. Back then, the context was my Christianity—now it's different but not as wildly different as you might think. I'm working on a book called Evolution is Easy, which seeks to explore the reasons we think it's hard, even impossible, and then to explore why that's wrong. Change is hard. But evolution is easy.
Blaugust 2023 encouraged me to write a bit more about myself, about things like extroversion, life as a rebel, life in Tucson surrounded by the Sky Islands, even my reading preferences. This year I'll do more of that, but most posts will be about how evolution is easier than we think. I started a series on the Protein Universe a few weeks ago, and will continue that during Blaugust 2024.
Thanks for stopping by, and look for me to visit you if you are in the Blaugust community. Leave me a comment to lure me!
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