Carl Rauscher grew up somewhere between Wisconsin and Iowa, not very far from the Mississippi River, where he dreamed of far-off worlds and their strange inhabitants. He enlisted in the U.S. military and traveled all over, learning that those far-off worlds weren't very far away and sometimes the real world was stranger than anything he dared imagine.

These days, Carl can be found in Maryland alternating between life as a management analyst at a federal agency, and being a husband and father at home, happily sharing stories and solving problems as the situation requires.