The Blair Hippo Project: Narcissist Frenzy

Where Pete Blathers On About Himself

08/20/08: Updating the Bio

Goodness. A few things have happened in the four years since I last touched this thing. Let's just scrub the old one and write something up-to-date.

My name is Pete Butler. That's me over there on the right. * I grew up in Iowa -- Sioux City first, then Reinbeck, (a little town near Cedar Falls) where I graduated high school in 1991. I graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1997 with degrees in Computer Science and Rhetoric. I tried to get my career as a techie started in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and then later Des Moines; that didn't work so good. I moved to Pittsburgh in the early part of 2000.

I got moved out here by a dot-bomb that, in accordance with the fashion of the time, collapsed into a smoldering heap of incompetence ten weeks after I arrived. I'm not bitter; the company was your classic late-90's marriage of wicked-cool technology ideas to staggering business ineptitude. I've worked for a number of places since then; the sweet thing about Pittsburgh is that if you know what you're doing, it's not hard to find work as a professional nerd. These days I'm fortunate enough to work for an employer who doesn't require me to put in 40-hour weeks, which gives me the time I need for my various writing projects.

I love Pittsburgh. This place has flavor, character. Despite the incompetent local government. Despite a road layout that feels like some sort of cruel civil engineering prank. The restaurants, the music, the people ... Pittsburgh has a lot to recommend it. This is my home. I'll be here a while.

I also lived in Washington, DC for fifteen months, split between 2005 and 2006. Didn't much care for it.

I used to be married to a woman named Melissa, but it didn't stick. We met in 2001, married in 2002, agreed to separate in 2007, and were officially divorced in 2008. We were very much in love for most of our time together. There are a lot of memories from that time that I'll probably treasure just as soon as the most recent ones stop hurting so much.

I used to have a dog named Katie. She's living with her mommy now, and I know she is loved and very well taken care of.

I'm a writer. Most of my work has been in short stories or novellas; you can find a complete list of everything I've had published on my bibliography page. I'm probably best known for my Squonk stories, kid-friendly tales of a dragon adopted by a bird. I've played around with novels a bit, but the only one I've written so far probably isn't going to see publication -- though it was very much appreciated by the person I wrote it for. I'll probably try my hand at it again sometime; I have this great idea for a science fiction wild west superhero monster apocalypse epic....

I'm the editor of the Triangulation anthology, published annually by PARECInk to coincide with PARSEC's Confluence convention. The first edition I edited, 2007's "Triangulation: End of Time," was very well-received. The jury is still out on the most recent effort, 2008's "Triangulation: Taking Flight," but I'm in the process of spamming the English-speaking reviewer world with copies of the thing, so hopefully people will start saying nice things about it before long. The 2009 edition, tentatively themed "Dark Glass," will be the last with me at the helm.

Life's been better, life's been worse. In the past year I've lost some things that really meant a lot to me, and in a lot of ways I'm still recovering. But I'm living in a city I love, in a house I love, and surrounded by friends I love. I'm working a good job that pays enough to let me stay where I am and allows me to chase this crazy-ass "writer" thing, where I've actually had some success. Thanks to my roommate, I even have a doggy in the house again, a ginormous poodle named Mason.

On the balance, I'd have to say life is pretty good.