Paul Damien was born in India and earned a PhD in Mathematics from Imperial College, London. He began his academic and writing career at Duke University. He then moved to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor where he was tenured. The thrill from doing giddy mathematics resulted in a long hiatus from writing, but not before he had published one novel, Death at C Minor, re-released as Nannerl’s Symphony (2013). Even during this fiction writing withdrawal, he felt compelled to find time to publish a humorous exposé of self-help pundits in Help! Debunking the Outrageous Claims of Self-Help Gurus (2008).
In addition to having lived on three continents, at universities he had the convenient advantage of exploring the world while attending conferences that provided silage for several books.
Says Damien, “It wasn’t my intention to take such a long break from fiction. Academic research interfered in a good way, for it demanded disciplined thinking and cogent communication,” while adding, “it is tyrannical people get pigeon-holed into specializations. In this age of somatic multi-tasking why shouldn’t we multi-idea?” He continues, “Could you imagine what Newton or Richard Feynman would have done with smart phones? But I guess there’s already an app for that.”
Having recently completed the thriller, The Gershwin Cutter, he is working on two more at the moment.
An avid cook and a skilled martial artist, Damien is currently on the faculty at the University of Texas in Austin. When he’s not working or sipping a martini, you can find him jogging on Austin’s Shoal Creek Trail with his Alsatian, Raja.