Recently a producer from the radio show Studio 360 called me up to talk science fiction. They wanted to throw a light on some of the artists who gave us the pictures we have of other worlds–of what we see when we step off the spaceship.

It just so happens that I grew up knowing one of them, named Jack Schoenherr, so I threw his name in the hat. It turns out that Studio 360 also runs a series of pieces called “Aha Moments” about experiences with art that change people’s lives. So we decided to combine the two, and I talked about what it’s like to be a ten-year-old boy walking into a barn studio full of giant sandworms and elephants and astronauts. Continue reading “Stepping off the Spaceship” →

When I was eleven, we buried my first dog under an apple tree. We got another one soon after, and he died about a decade later while I was away at college. That was a pretty typical experience when it comes to kids and dogs. In a study published last year, British researchers found that the median lifespan of a pet dog was all of twelve years. Dogs can be fine companions over the course of a human childhood, but they are hardly Methuselahs. Continue reading “How A Dog Has Lived For Eleven Thousand Years–In Other Dogs” →