TuacaCon 2011 – Richard Ragan

Richard Ragan writes for a living (writing software that is, for a very large Internet Auction site). Richard was weaned on reading science fiction and by 4th grade had exhausted the genre at the school library. To deal with the shortage, he soon scored library cards at all five town libraries.

Entranced by computers in high school, he achieved notoriety by writing one of the earliest computer programs to write poetry and saw it featured in the New York Times, Washington Post and Scientific American. Not bad for a computer made of vacuum tubes with software on punched cards. Sadly a professor of modern poetry had this criticism:

“Legitimate and interesting sort of operation … too much of the old notion of poetic diction; it was too limited in nature… has no satiric force against modern poetry”

After grad school, a career in computer software beckoned and this has kept him amused and challenged since. Bike riding, geocaching, photography, hiking and travel to UNESCO World Heritage sites keep him occupied when not working. Eventually, once retired, he hopes to see if writing and podcasting is for him.

Richard attended the inaugural Tuacacon 2010 and was pleased to have his suggestion for the improv section adopted — “The Voyages of the Starship Tuaca”.