Thomas TimminsI somehow won the genes-and-family lottery when I inherited a natural happiness coupled with a skeptical eye and a drive to do. Despite numinous gifts of love and energy, my magic carpet has slipped out from under me many times. I believe pulling outof those nosedives gave me the confidence to write and write. That and the endless beauty and pain of the world around, and the deep pleasure I feel when I record and share in poems and stories what I feel and imagine. I developed and taught writing and coaching programs for youth artists, adult writers and adult inmates. I've published and performed work in person across the U.S., in numerous print magazines and on the Internet. With poet friends, I founded Fractals, a literary tabloid, and with musician friends, I ran Poets and Players, a community performance series-and I write a lot. My day jobs, the pylons holding up the electricity powering my artistic life, include founding and managing small businesses ranging from soy foods to ice cream to telephone fundraising to biological pest control to energy efficiency and solar retrofits and a media company. Some might think so many business and writing projects reveal an innate instability. I admit to restlessness, and I believe our complex lives happen while we meander a Crooked Path. Read More Read Less