Russell Beck

I grew up in Indianapolis, played college football, fell in love, and ended up on a merchant freighter bound for India at 20 years old, not because I planned it that way but because life had other ideas.

That's kind of the theme running through everything I write. The unexpected turns. The decisions that seem reasonable at the time and look insane in hindsight. The moments where you find out who you actually are, usually because something has gone sideways.

I've worked the night shift in a Buffalo steel mill, after a Mardi gras blackout I found myself stranded on a tugboat in the Gulf of Mexico for two weeks, built a career in nonprofit work, and spent the last fourteen years as an expat in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

I write about all of it, with as much honesty and humor as I can manage, attempting to capture the lessons I've learned from those special experiences that happened to me over the course of my 77 years of life.

If you've ever looked back at your own life and thought "how on earth did I end up here," you might find something familiar in my stories.