A native American (not to be confused with a Native American), I am myself a writer (mostly of poetry) and editor of everything from college entrance essays and technical manuals to dissertations and novel manuscripts. During four years of teaching ESL (English as a second language) in Japan, I also had the opportunity to author four fairly advanced-level textbooks with three other teachers. As head writer and editor, I was the only author given sole responsibility for a particular section, in this case the grammar notes. I also edited or rewrote sections of sample Special-A UNATE (United Nations Test of English) exams for classroom use. Interestingly, though, four years abroad, especially when it involves so much exposure to students who do not always have the best knowledge of English in any of its forms, can soften slightly the grammatical hard-wiring of even the most fastidious linguist.

My interests are mainly history, literature, politics/current affairs, GLBTQI (queer) subjects, philosophy, and popular science. Though I hope to become more focused in the kinds of articles I gravitate toward, I often find myself accessing articles only because of something in the news (or in a book) that's piqued my curiosity, either because I know nothing about it or because I just want to see how it's presented here. However, whether you're a writer or just an editor doing some cleanup on Wikipedia articles, there are always exciting things to learn and interesting people to talk to.