Question: “What has been a Nightclub Entertainer, Computer Systems Administrator, University Course Chair, Software Designer/Programmer, Choral Director, Composer, Actor, Director, Playwright, and poet?”

Answer: “WSFV Member, Ray Malus.”

Educated in New York City (Bronx High School Of Science, Manhattan College), Malus ‘dropped out’ in his Junior year, and hit the road with a traveling band. Eventually, he became a Variety Performer, and settled in the San Fernando Valley, in 1970. The rest just followed, naturally.

“I just followed my curiosity.” he says. “I never chased money, just went where my interest called me. Somehow the bills got paid.”

Now 65 and retired, Malus lives with his wife of 10 years, Sharron, in a house he bought in 1971.

“With everything else in my life so chaotic, I needed a haven, someplace to hide in.”

Malus says he’s been fortunate to live in interesting times and places. He was part of the Greenwich Village ‘Folk Scene’, was in San Francisco for the ‘Summer Of Love’, and got interested in personal computers, when they were still an arcane technical curiosity.

“I’ve always seemed to be able to ‘Grandfather’ myself into a career, finding something relatively new, and growing with the field.”

Asked about his various careers, Malus gets a bit ‘mystical’. “It’s all really part of the same thing, an urge to create – to make concrete something that only existed in my imagination. Writing, design, performing, composing, teaching - even programming – all reduce to that same act.”

Malus’ writing covers a lot of different genres. Primarily a Playwright (he’s had 7 plays produced), he writes short stories, memoirs, and poetry, too.

“I’ll write anything I think people will read.”

Advice to other writers?

“Always be truthful. And always write as though it’ll be read by someone you want to seduce.”