Bernard Saftner was born in southwestern Pennsylvania (USA) in the winter of 1951. He went to good schools, worked hard and did well. Serving primarily in Information Technology and Human Resources, he was employed for twenty-seven years at the Pittsburgh office of a multinational manufacturing corporation. Now retired, Bernie enjoys reading, international travel, volunteer work, and many kinds of music, especially Arabic, East Asian, and death metal styles. He is the author of Punctuated Equilibrium, a collection of fiction and poetry.