Dave Suess

North Dakotan. Ex-rocket-scientist. Ballroom dancer.
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I was born and annealed in North Dakota, where my mother taught me to read before I turned three. High school valedictorian and president of the lettermen's club, degree in engineering in three years (summa), recruited out of grad school to work on space projects at a Defense Department think tank in Los Angeles. I did rocket science for 26 years (and wrote 1000 pages of technical memoranda per year), but only because I was good at it; I've always wanted to be a fiction writer.

I've been barely published: a weekly comic strip for a year in the hometown newspaper in my teens, a scholarly paper (but in a classified volume), and a couple of letters per year in the L.A. Times (including one that was only two words long). I'm amenable to editing, even in life: after I quit the think tank, I became a competitive ballroom dancer for ten years, surprising everyone who knew me, including myself.

I've been writing unpublished works and dancing foxtrots and tangos. I haven't touched a snow shovel in decades.