Shurmantine BradBrad Shurmantine grew up and attended college in Missouri. After a brief sojourn in Italy he transplanted himself to San Francisco, and has lived in the Bay Area ever since. For thirty-six years he was a high school English teacher and administrator,and labored futilely to reform public education. He is a black belt in Aikido, an ardent backpacker, and a very amateur beekeeper. In retirement he spends his time writing, reading, napping, watching the Warriors, growing expensive vegetables from nursery six-packs, and serving seven chickens, two adorable cats, and two annually collapsing bee hives. His fiction and personal essays have appeared in Mud Season Review, Loch Raven Review, and Catamaran; his poetry in Third Wednesday, Delta Poetry Review, and Blue Lake Review. He hikes in the Sierras, travels abroad when he can, and prefers George Eliot (who he didn't discover until he was 60) to Charles Dickens, or almost anyone. Read More Read Less