William Frank

I’m a fourth-generation New Mexican, but I grew up on naval air stations ranging from colonial French Morocco to Guam. My father was an aerologist in the U.S. Navy, and we moved every year or two. I’ve lived for a year or more in at least fifteen places and enjoyed them all.

Both of my parents were science majors, and I developed an early affection for the science fiction of Robert A. Heinlein and others. My first sci-fi book was Heinlein’s “Have Space Suit Will Travel”. Many years later I found that this was also the first sci-fi book read by George R. R. Martin, but I’m sure that’s coincidental.

Astronomy was my first career plan, but when my father retired from the navy, we moved to Connecticut. United Aircraft was just four miles away, and a few years later . I graduated from M.I.T. with a degree in aeronautical engineering.

​After four years in the Air Force serving as a flight test engineer (Edwards AFB, California), I entered graduate school and earned my PhD in Atmospheric Science. I became a professor of tropical meteorology and served as a professor for thirty years, primarily at Penn State. For six years I served as the department head, but I prefer science to management, so I happily returned to the academic trenches. Hurricanes and thunderstorms were my specialties, though I also researched the dynamics of less spectacular weather systems.

​I retired a bit early to pursue my writing interests, and I was anxious to try detective fiction. To borrow a line from the late folk singer, Patrick Sky: “Reality is bad enough, why should I tell the truth?”.

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My wife, Kathleen Frank, is a famous painter of western landscapes, and we decided to return to my ancestral homeland of New Mexico. We now live in Santa Fe with a couple of corgis and ready access to the best enchiladas in the west.