Author Loretta Hall's education as a mathematician and her experience as a high school teacher reinforce her natural talent for clearly explaining technical topics in an engaging way. Since becoming a freelance writer eighteen years ago, she has written four books, and hundreds of magazine articles and reference book chapters. Six of these reference books won a total of thirteen awards. Examples of Hall's technical articles for laypersons include three chapters explaining structural collapses for the book When Technology Fails and twenty-seven chapters for the book series How Products Are Made (including one on rammed earth construction--a technique that amounts to creating an aboveground cave). Other topics she described for the seven-volume series include skyscrapers, tunnels, geodesic domes, and storm shelters. A member of the Construction Writers Association, Hall has also written (and ghostwritten) for industry professionals (for example, articles for Southwest Contractor, Civil Engineering, Government Engineering, and Traditional Masonry). Her most recent book, From Skyscrapers to Superdomes: Forces in Balance (Newbridge Educational Publishing, 2005), introduces middle school students to the laws of physics that architects and structural engineers must accommodate in their designs. 

For more information about Loretta, see her Q&A author profile at ExactingEditor.com.