My name is Paul Nurnberg and I’ll be 30 this year. My wife and I will have been married for eight years in May ’08 (getting married in ’00 has made it very easy to keep track of the years). We have five children (one boy sandwiched between two girls on either side) who range in ages from 13 years to 8 weeks old. I know. I know! Thirty years old with five kids…how much more Mormon can you get? I guess you could get six or seven or eight degrees more Mormon, but forget eight, five is enough. Don’t get the wrong impression. We love our kids, yea even the teenager. The best lesson I’ve learned being the father of a 13 year old is this: If I’d have known that the girls go to YW and Mutual mainly to see the boys, I would have been more interested as a teenager.

I grew up in Utah — SLC and West Jordan — but now I make my home in the northern regions of Kentucky, and cross the Ohio every day to go to work. I write proposals for a big, “evil” managed care company. I have an Associates degree from University of Cincinnati and in May, (fingers crossed) I should have a Bachelor’s in Business from Thomas More College. I wanted to teach high school and write, and maybe I will later, but for now it’s “real job” city for me.

My connection to Mormon letters is kind of round about. I learned to love reading and writing from several very good high school English teachers—one of whom, I’ve found, is a regular participant and member of the AML. Coming out of high school, I didn’t see myself really writing for a Mormon audience, mostly because I didn’t know there was one. Okay, so I knew about Charley and The Work and The Glory, but my writing didn’t fit that, so I didn’t think of my future self as a Mormon writer.

I gave up writing for a while, but by the time I picked it up again, I had become acquainted with Eugene England’s collections of essays, which led me to Tending the Garden, which had led me to A Believing People, and Douglas Thayer, and Levi Peterson, etc. and etc. Now, I’m a Mormon, and a writer. I haven’t had anything published since Ye Olde High School Literary Magazine, so I don’t have anything any of you will recognize. I hope to remedy that in time, and I’m very excited to participate here with people of like interests.