Contributor Biographies #2

These biographies are shown in the order in which they were received. Use Previous and Next at the top and bottom of each page to move through them, or pick a name from the list of all biographies.

Paul LoCasto

Greetings,

My name is Paul LoCasto, I am 25 years old. I am a career student, receiving Bachelors and Masters degrees in Psychology. I am presently working towards my PhD (yes, pile it high) in psycholinguistics at the Psychology Department at the State University of New York at Binghamton. My work focuses on the investigating how we recognize speech. That is, how is sound (what is essentially the displacement of air molecules) translated into symbolic representations with meaning.

I have always had a keen interest in writing instruments. I was the kid who had at least 10 different pens in my school bag at one time. My first introduction to fountain pens came by the way of Platignum calligraphy sets which my father made me practice my handwriting with.

Right now, my collection is an eclectic mix of vintage and modern. I try to scour the local antique malls looking for those $75 broken nibbed Wearevers- I can never get enough. I have a soft spot for the Pelikan 200 (which in my opinion is the best modern FP in terms of price/value). I have a couple wonderful vintage Pelikans as well. The 1930s lockdown Parker Vacumatics are my secret mistresses- in terms of aesthetics, no other has come close.

I am also acutely interested in paper and ink. I am always trying to catalogue and experiment with different ink recipes.

My other interests include B&W photography (fine art and existential), blues (the real stuff- Otis Spann, Junior Wells, Willie Mabon to name a few), weightlifting (I've been lazy the past year though), and literature (the art of the novel is the investigation of existential issues through experimental selves- paraphrased Milan Kundera).

Given my ‘lingua' background, I am frequently confronted with the urge to look up the etymology of words sometimes back to their Proto Indo-European roots. I'm sure you will see some of my etymological posts around here. I am a struggling neologist as well..the grinker is that no one knows what I am saying.

Doug Addington

In January I celebrated my thirty-ninth birthday, and the seventeenth year of a lifelong partnership with my best friend, Mona. We have been married fourteen years, and have an eight year old son, Daniel. Born and raised in eastern Indiana, I moved to South Carolina when I was nineteen, and have lived all but two years since in the Carolinas.

Pens were nothing more than utilitarian to me until four years ago. I am the pastor of a small church in a town approximately forty miles north of Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina. A couple I married in December 1996 gave me a Waterman Phileas rollerball as a gift, and for the first time I realized pens can be more than functional. They can also be pleasant to behold!

Just after Christmas the following year I walked into a store selling Parker pens at half price. I bought a pearl and black Duofold and a firedance Sonnet--my first fountain pens. My handwriting was dreadful, and I knew I must improve it to justify using these fine writing instruments. So I taught myself basic italic using Barbara Getty and Inga Dubay's Write Now book. I do nearly all my daily correspondence by hand with fountain pens, and many comment how nice it is to receive a handwritten letter in this day of computer-generated form letters and broadcast email.

My son Daniel admired my fountain pens, couldn't get enough of writing with them, and you guessed it . . . "Dad, when can I get one of my own?" I told him when he improved his handwriting I would buy him one. He worked on it, and received a Waterman Phileas for Christmas last year. He liked it so much, he used his own money to buy another one. Between the two of us, we now have about two dozen fountain pens (of course Dad has more!).

I like all my pens for different reasons, so it is hard to choose favorites. I like the italic and the vintage flexible nibs for the distinctive character and flourish they add to my writing, the Phileas for its smoothness and "sure as the sun rising" dependability. The ones I find myself returning to time and again are an emerald Aurora Optima, a blue Pelikan 800, and a 1929 black and pearl oversize Sheaffer Balance with flexible medium nib which I bought from Ross McKinney . A writing hand severely broken in a motorcycle accident fifteen years ago has introduced me to Mr. Arthur Itis, so my old faithfuls tend to be the larger pens.

I thoroughly enjoy Duke basketball, Durham Bulls baseball (that's where the picture was taken), and riding my bicycle. I take great delight in music of many different types, and I like the relaxing experience of taking pen in hand and writing letters to friends. Participating in the Snail Mail group has broadened that circle of friends, and opened new horizons for entering into the lives of others. Daniel has begun corresponding with some of the children of snailers, and we are both enjoying it tremendously.

Roger Skully

Currently I operate and own a small portrait and wedding photography studio in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan, next to Detroit. I am 59 years old, married, and we live with two four-legged children- our dogs.

Prior to this is was in private practice as a psychotherapist. I have taught psychology at the college level, owned several bridal shops, and currently do all of the baby photography at one of city's medium sized birthing units, St. John Hospital of Detroit.

My hobbies include music and extensive reading. I have been cantor of the Grosse Pointe Jewish Council, and am currently at Beth Tephilath Moses, a conservadox synagogue in Mt. Clemens, Michigan. I have also served as president of the Grosse Pointe Ministerial Association.

As a photographer, I believe that I have found what really makes my heart sing. I love the work, and every day is a new challenge.

A picture of me is on my website. I am the not too well dressed one with the camera in the section labeled pets.

Roger Skully

robinsnestphotography.com

Jane Mathis-Hopson

I was born during WWII so I grew up using fountain pens. About a year ago, I realized I missed my pens so I dug out the few old ones I'd kept since grad school and began using them again. Bought a few vintage Esterbrooks (the kind I used in high school) and learned about repair, discovered the wealth of web resources about both vintage and new pens, obtained a few moderately-priced new pens, and began to experience the joy of handwriting once more! My first pen show, in Atlanta last March, was a real treat and I'd highly recommend a pen show for anyone who's new to the world of fountain pens. Although I've badly neglected the Snail List in recent months, getting and sending handwritten notes, letters, and cards has been another real treat.

After 25 years in student affairs at liberal-arts colleges in North Carolina and California (student housing, Dean of Students), I now earn my living as a Coordinator of Institutional Research at the University of Alabama in Birmingham (enrollment reports, reporting for the federal government and the state higher education commission, surveys, and the UAB factbook). Charles and I live in a nearby suburb with our torti calico cat, Zoe, and more books than many small-town libraries. We both love European travel, but more often we're involved in our hobbies of scrapbooking and rubber-stamping (me) and bookbinding (Charles). Our three grown children and their spouses are all over the US -- one in Venice, CA; one in NYC; and one in Charleston, SC. And we'll be first-time grandparents in early December.

I love reading -- mostly memoirs, biographies and autobiographies but also poetry, the occasional novel, and (Miles, get this) Shakespeare's history plays. You can take the girl out of the English major (and English master's degree), but you can't take the English studies out of the girl! Have kept journals for more years than I care to mention, and this winter I'll be nurturing my interest in writing at a Natalie Goldberg workshop in Taos, NM.

The new Pentrace site is a wonderful thing, and I wish it and all its contributors the very best of everything!

Yit Arn Teh

I first developed an interest in fountain pens as a child, when I was given a set of calligraphy pens by my father. Later, I developed a passion for literature and language, and began - at an early age - to write poetry and prose.

I have since drifted far from the literary road. I am 25, and pursuing my Ph.D in biogeochemistry at the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management. In the most general sense, I study the mineral cycles that occur at the Earth's surface, particularly reactions catalyzed by microorganisms. More specifically, I work on the cycling of carbon compounds in tropical forest soils, and the biochemical/geochemical tranformations that naturally occuring organic compounds experience. My dissertation focuses on the factors that control the emission of carbon-based greenhouse gases (i.e., methane - commonly called "natural gas" - and carbon dioxide) in wet tropical forest soils. I also have an interest in the degradation and fate of contaminants (i.e., heavy metals, pesticides, petroleum hydrocarbons, etc.) in the natural envrionment.

Outside of science, I take an active interest in music. I listen to everything from Baroque chamber music to contemporary free jazz. I'm still a literary fiend, and plow through a disgustingly large number of books month-by-month. My favourite writers include Rushdie, Milan Kundera, Umberto Eco, Italo Calvino and Hemingway. I'm currently exploring the writing of South Asian writers, such as Vikram Chandra and Amit Chaudhuri. I love modern/postmodern art (having minored in art history while in college), and try to sneak off to SF MoMA whenever I'm able to free myself from the labwork that I find myself immersed in.

I have modest collection of modern pens. I have a penchant for Italian ebonite and celluloid.

My homepage