Eugene L. Conrotto was born in Gilroy, California, at the southern end of Santa Clara Valley known today as Silicon Valley. He has lived his life two decades at a time. For the first twenty years he was a student, that experience culminating in a degree in anthropology from Stanford University. For the next twenty years he was a journalist in the California desert: editor of the award-winning Desert Magazine. His first book-Lost Desert Bonanzas-came from this experience. The third twenty years of his life saw him return to the classroom as a teacher. Hence: Classroom Strategies for the Subversive English Teacher. The fourth twenty years-and still counting-were spent in blessed retirement, the chief joy of which he found is "one no longer has to take orders from idiots." (He did not consider the spreading of good cheer to be among his responsibilities.) Conrotto is also the author of Miwok Means People, The Memoirs of Caesar Honore, Classroom Strategies for the Subversive English Teacher, An Annotated Chronology of the California Gold Rush, Notes on My Stay in a Convalescent Hospital, Avanti America, A Day with the Ant-People, and A Chronology of Unitarian-Universalist Celebrated Individuals.