Having a natural curiosity led me to my writing literary fiction. Writing fiction led to my bartending and serving in restaurants, to keep the lights on. The combination of writing, working in the service industry, and fiction editing led to my position as an editor at a wine and spirit trade magazine, which led to my writing about flavored moonshine. I wrote about flavored moonshine with the aforesaid natural curiosity, which led to my learning about aspects of American history I hadn’t known about. And about the creation of NASCAR—something I’d never thought about.