About the Author:

I was born in Berkeley, California and raised in Orinda, CA, Columbo, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) and New Delhi, India. My father's work with the Asia Foundation took us to Asia, and during these stays we explored as much of Asia as possible. To and from each country we toured Europe (airfare was cheap then) and visited every major museum and architectural landmark.

I grew up exposed to so much great literature, history, art and architecture that all remain very important in my life. I'm very much like my father that way. From age 10 I also shared his interest in film, and majored in film studies in college, with a solid focus on Film Noir. I'm an avid reader of books (primarily nonfiction), newspapers and magazines.

I've been writing professionally for close to 30 years now, mostly in advertising, marketing and public relations, but I've also written several articles and short stories. One of my erotic short stories was published anonymously (I was still married then) in an anthology. I also wrote a biography of German-born film director Robert Siodmak that was published by McFarland in 1998. It's no longer in print, but you can still read reviews and excerpts at Amazon.com.

I am divorced and have a son, Alexander (AKA Sasha), who is the most important person in my life. I have a smattering of French, German (thanks to my Siodmak research) and Russian (4 years in high school)--I can understand all three languages a lot better than I can speak them!

Politics: I am a lifelong, 4th generation liberal democrat, but not adverse to "sleeping with the enemy." :) In fact, some of the best relationships (friendship and otherwise) I've had have been with people who enjoy a good political debate as much as I do.

Music: Everything from 1920's jazz to modern classical composers, and that "everything" encompasses a very wide range--I love swing and rockabilly, Vivaldi, Prokofiev, Philip Glass, Erik Satie, Dave Brubeck, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Rye Cooder (especially his soundtracks), The Cramps, The Troggs, 60's and 70's soul and funk (especially Al Green and Ray Charles)and Creedence Clearwater - the first record album I ever bought was "Cosmo's Factory" - among many others.

Movies: I've literally seen thousands of films, so I tend to list the ones that had the greatest impact on my life, like Criss Cross and Cry of The City (both Siodmak); Vertigo; The Servant; Pulp Fiction; Through A Glass Darkly; Diabolique; Repulsion, Chinatown, Seconds, The Tin Drum, Shoah, Brazil, the original Manchurian Candidate, The Year of Living Dangerously, a 1960's Swedish softcore porn film called 17, FILMS NOIRS, and anything that features a lot of men, from 18th century seafaring tales like Billy Budd and Damn the Defiant to The Great Escape, The Right Stuff and Das Boat. I love men for all the ways in which they aren't like women, and that's why I so enjoy movies with lots of men.

Television: A lot here, too: the original Twilight Zone and Outer Limits, The Alfred Hitchcock show, Star Trek, The Avengers, The Prisoner, Upstairs, Downstairs, Fernwood Tonight, Six Feet Under; My current favorites are True Blood, Real Time with Bill Maher, Mad Men and Breaking Bad. My guilty pleasure is "reality" TV, especially all those competition shows for chefs, fashion and interior designers, etc. on BRAVO; and anything with Gordon Ramsey (US TV and BBC).

Books: My favorite book of all time is Luis Bunuel's memoir, My Last Sigh. I read a lot of erotica, of course (I first discovered Henry Miller when I was eleven) and mostly nonfiction, but I do read some novels; Milan Kundera has been a favorite, as well as Nabokov, Ford Madox Ford and John Fowles, among others. My favorite woman writer is Rosemary Danielle; Sleeping With Soldiers is my second favorite book of all time because I've done just that.

Heroes: Writer and Poet Rosemary Danielle; Robert Siodmak, Alfred Hitchcock, Harvey Keitel, Robert Coles, the pediatric psychiatrist who writes sensitively about children in crisis; Morris Dees for the Southern Poverty Law Center; C. Everett Koop, for his integrity as surgeon general; Harold Bridges,the first leader of the Longshoremen's Union; Harvey Milk, who would have been a very important political presence by now if he had lived; Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India; Rye Cooder; Samuel L. Jackson; Hank Williams, Gene Vincent, Roy Orbison, Artie Shaw, Ray Charles, Dave Brubeck, Al Green, etc., etc.