"My father worked as a writer and performer during the experimental early years of live local television in Philadelphia. My mother loved to laugh as much as she loved anything or anyone during her all-too-brief life. A maternal aunt was born with an amazing and odd capacity to recall dates and number of any or no significance. And just about every one of my male ancestors was an unrelenting grammarian. So it seems I was wired from birth to do with my life what it is I've done with it and to become whatever it is I've become.

But DNA met destiny at age 17 when as an incoming senior at Father Judge Catholic High School for Boys in Philadelphia I signed up for an English-language elective titled The Written Word and the Moving Image. Because it opened up my world to both. And I'd guess everything that's made up my world since then -- the early years in print journalism, the decade-and-a-half in network television that followed, the academia posts after that, and now the roles in OTT entertainment, not to mention the endless writing before, during, and since (sometimes for a readership of one)  -- has been the result."