Before I figured out that my writing focus was to be forests, wildlife, and conservation, I wrote in other genres. My starving artist phase (1976-1981) was served in Manhattan as an aspiring playwright. Arriving in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1981, and having immersed myself in film and theater while in New York, I convinced the arts editor at the Santa Fe Reporter that I could review films. Meanwhile, my play, Willis and Sons, had its first production, which led to other major consequences, as you will see elsewhere. Ten years later In Vermont, in the kind of chance encounter that has blessed me throughout my life, I met Judith Freeman Clark, who had a contract to write four books for kids and needed a hand. Sure, I said.