Charles K. Summers was born in a small rural town to a waitress and a roughneck (the people who do the dirty work on oil rigs). He has worked on farms, driven tractors, baked donuts, built grain silos, repaired Navajo rugs, and has had a long career as a computer scientist. Surrounded by thousands of books on shelves and in stacks, he currently lives, with his wife and four of five children, in Southern California. He continues work on his blog and books.