It was March 1989 and a hiking buddy and I were sitting on a mountain in Kodiak, Alaska, looking across the valley at a bear who had just come out of hibernation and was happily digging up roots, eating and rebooting his digestive system. We gazed into our binoculars and talked about a tanker that had just gone aground in Prince William Sound. To me, it seemed far away, and I felt as safe as French Jews talking about what was happening to the Jews in Germany in the 1930s. It all seemed like someone else’s problem that would...
Let me start by admitting that my tech skills are minimal. I love to write, just for the pleasure of writing. But I once lost the best story I’d ever written because my computer, which had been warning me of an impending disaster like a rumbling volcano, imploded and I had not backed up my story.
I went into mourning, bought a new laptop, but did not write anything significant for a long time. I now backup everything.
However, I do appreciate the wonders of modern technology. I used to send entire manuscripts with a self-addressed envelope to potential publishers to...
