Curtis Seltzer
Author | Blue Grass, Virginia, USA |
Website
Curtis Seltzer writes fiction, non-fiction, columns, arbitration awards, land-consulting analyses and notes of praise and regrets.
He grew up in Pittsburgh where his 1963 classmates at Peabody High School voted him second funniest. He received a B.A. from Oberlin College, as well as an M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Columbia University. He also ho.... more
Curtis Seltzer writes fiction, non-fiction, columns, arbitration awards, land-consulting analyses and notes of praise and regrets.
He grew up in Pittsburgh where his 1963 classmates at Peabody High School voted him second funniest. He received a B.A. from Oberlin College, as well as an M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Columbia University. He also holds apprentice underground coal-mining papers in West Virginia and held a Class-A residential contractor’s license in Virginia for 10 years.
Since 1983, he’s operated cattle-and-timber farms in Blue Grass, Va., where the four-legged boys in the pastures regard his college degrees with suspicion and muted hostility. They don’t like being told what to do, a trait he’s found in others as well.
He’s written Fire in the Hole: Miners and Managers in the American Coal Industry (1985), How To Be a DIRT-Smart Buyer of Country Property (2007) and five collections of columns. www.curtis-seltzer.com.
He is married to Melissa Dowd, one of two lawyers in Highland County (population 2,200), which has one more lawyer than blinking lights. Their daughter, Molly, works for Google in San Francisco and has written a memoir and a novel.