Merry Youle

While a graduate student, I discovered that I enjoyed a task that many folks abhor: writing and editing scientific papers and reports. My first professional editing was for my thesis advisor at Johns Hopkins University. I completed my Ph.D. in molecular biology and then went on to college teaching. Soon I was writing again, this time a self-study introductory biology course. Next came some years of homesteading, then the creation of a natural foods restaurant and an independent bookstore. (This was, after all, the '70s.) But soon I was back to writing and editing. With the advent of personal computers and desktop publishing, I found a long-term niche as a free-lance technical writer for software developers, preparing user's manuals. Always there was the pleasure of translating concepts from a specialist language to the language of a different audience.

The 21st century brought me full circle, back to biology, this time enthralled by the complexity of the "simplest" life forms – the phages and other viruses. To my great delight, I had the opportunity to share my admiration for their ingenuity as a frequent contributor to Elio Schaechter's award-winning blog sponsored by the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), Small Things Considered. (http://bit.ly/1Ozip1Q or http://smallthingsconsidered.us)

More good fortune came my way in the form of Forest Rohwer, a microbial ecologist with a phage focus. We worked together on numerous written projects – he in San Diego and I on the Big Island. Our first book, "Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas," was published in 2010. The Year of the Phage, 2015, saw the publication of "Life in Our Phage World." These phage stories, and others, called for yet another book, and one for a broader audience. So I continued to write, now solo.

Next to be published was "Thinking Like a Phage" (May, 2017). Here I enjoyed sharing the wizardry displayed by different phages as they induce their host to produce more phages, rather than more cells. Since this book, too, leaves untold the story of their collective impact on ecology and evolution, I am now at work on a book that explores those dimensions. After all, phages are the most numerous and the most diverse life forms on Earth. They comprise an unseen realm, bubbling with creativity. To me, their existence adds even more wonder to the story of life and helps me to understand my place within it.