Robert Gould Shaw

I am a native of a small beach town in Los Angeles, Hermosa Beach. As a child, I attended the McMartin Preschool, the subject of a witch hunt and the longest criminal trial in US history. I grew up playing soccer, acting, tap dancing, body surfing, playing trombone, and reading. In high school, I was in the marching band, but I sidelined as a musician in a Renaissance band playing at Renaissance Faires in Southern and Northern California. In college, I studied German and continued to play music, in band and at the Renaissance Faires. For a summer, I worked in a Swiss supermarket and lived with a local family. After college, I worked as a pension administrator and then moved to Washington, DC for graduate school. I have a master's in Soviet and East European Studies and Comparative Politics. Not everyone can say that they have a master's in a subject that doesn't exist anymore. Since the early 1990s, I have worked for social science research consulting firms, mostly studying state-level behavioral health policy writing reports that possibly have fewer readers than my novels. I have been writing novels for years and I think I am close to getting the hang of it.

My novels are written in different styles. The subject of the book dictates the style. However, my sense of humor carries through across the styles and genres.

I do a lot of photography and am the son of a very active, perhaps compulsive photographer. Some of my books are compilations of my father's photography.

I also publish a nearly weekly blog about travel and exploration: https://serendipitism.blogspot.com/