Lawrence Nielsen was born in the sweltering, early hours typical of early August in Orland, California. Since the town was too small for his father to pursue his chosen profession,...ver maisLawrence Nielsen was born in the sweltering, early hours typical of early August in Orland, California. Since the town was too small for his father to pursue his chosen profession, the family moved to the Sacramento area to be close to McClellan Air Force Base. Since his father wanted his sons to grow up tough without naming them Sue, he moved the family to the more colorful and hostile neighborhoods around the base. After graduating from high school, and two years of college, Nielsen enrolled in intensive Portuguese classes at Brigham Young University preparatory to embarking on a two year mission in Brazil. [In spite of what some have said and believed, he has never been a mercenary, and definitely did not die fighting in some third world cesspool.] Upon returning to the States, he returned to college, and five month plus twenty-nine days after coming home, he married his sweetheart of four years, Florence Bringhurst. He earned a PhD in History from UC Davis in 1975, and within a year dragged his wife to Brazil where he taught graduate and undergraduate classes at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, located in Florianopolis. When he returned to the States five years later, once again abandoning the paradise he had found in Ribeirão Da Ilha, he settled his family in Orange County, California. He abandoned academic publishing for creative fiction and poetry. Family concerns and employment opportunities took the family to Surprise Valley in Modoc County, California. His wife and children complained that Cedarville was so isolated that they could see the middle of nowhere from the front porch. Again they moved, stayed briefly in Yuba City, then moved to the foothills of Yuba County on the edge of the Yuba Goldfields. When not writing on the human condition, Nielsen works as a teacher at the Bi-County Juvenile Hall, raises chickens and veggie, and chases after gold, ghosts and mushrooms in the Mother lode, Sierras, and Coastal regions of California.ver menos