Steven Amsterdam — American Writer born on January 31, 1966,

Steven Amsterdam is an American writer. He lives in Melbourne, Australia, where he also works as a palliative care nurse... (wikipedia)

Nursing demands vigilance about people. The sights and smells that a patient offers, their movements and their offhand comments all contribute crucial information to understanding what they need. Training and experience heighten one's ability to see what needs to be seen.
A story is built on characters and reasons.
Fiction demands structures and recognizable shapes. Big surprises only draw attention to the writer's hand.
Being with a small publisher has been huge. They bat for me for everything.
Until I became a nurse, no one had ever asked me to sign a book contract. I had been writing for decades, read thousands of books, and even worked in publishing for 10 years. Who knew that nursing would be my break?