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Submitted by Tom Swiss on Sun, 10/27/2013 - 17:41

We're moving along with getting Why Buddha Touched the Earth to press. I just sent some paperwork (electron-work?) over to Megalithica/Immanion, and part of what they wanted was a 200 to 500 word bio for their website.

I always get a little bit caught in a mental loop when I have to do these things. I've got a presenter's bio that I've used for Starwood and FSG for many years, and I've had to put them together for various poetry events, and I've got my "About Me" pages on my karate site and my shiatsu site (both of which need some updating). Though they emphasize different things, they each add up to the same statement: "I am an interesting person who is an expert in <whatever> and you should give me your attention and/or money!" I always feel like I'm creating a character, someone distinct from the guy whose house is a mess and who's trying to get over a cold and still has unsorted feelings about several ex-girlfriends and maybe the start of a case of athlete's foot between two toes on his left foot...

Maybe there's a better way to do them, but if so I haven't figured it out. So here's the latest.

Tom Swiss describes his spiritual path as “Zen Pagan Taoist Atheist Discordian”, which usually baffles questioners enough to leave him alone. Over the past decade he has built a reputation as a lecturer on subjects spanning the gamut from acupressure to Zen and from self-defense to sexuality. He is a regular presenter at the Starwood Festival and the Free Spirit Gathering, and has previously served as President of the Free Spirit Alliance.

Tom has been a practicing Pagan since 1990, and a student of Asian culture through the lens of traditional martial and healing arts since 1985. He is a karate student and instructor, ranked godan (fifth degree black belt) in a traditional Japanese school; and is also an NCCAOM Diplomate in Asian Bodywork Therapy, with a small private practice in shiatsu acupressure. He holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Maryland, and has a keen interest in how technological changes affect societies.

As one of the coordinators of the weekly “Zelda’s Inferno” poetry workshop, he is a fixture in the Baltimore poetry scene. He has performed his poetry at venues too numerous to count, and on film in the documentary The Poets from Planet X. His poems have appeared the anthology Octopus Dreams, in Zelda's Zine, and in the indie.

He lives in Catonsville, Maryland (a suburb of Baltimore best known for the “Catonsville Nine” anti-war demonstration and for its concentration of music stores and venues), where he is currently at work on a novel and on an album of original music.

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