An Australian who recently arrived in the United States, Frank Povah is passionate about the written and spoken word and constantly amazed and bewildered by non-verbs and neo-nouns. Trained as a typesetter - though he has worked at many things - he later branched out into proofreading, writing and editing and has for many years been copy editor, consultant and columnist with a prestigious Australian quarterly as well as running his own freelance editorial and typesetting business. Povah's other interests include traditional music, literature, folklore, natural history, and pigeons.