Biographical Info

Richard Maurer is a freelance science writer, exhibit developer, and children's book author. His books have won awards from the American Institute of Physics, the Western Writers Association, and the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Association, and have appeared on many lists of notable books.

He got his writing start by drafting captions for his pioneering exhibits on space photography: "The Audiences of the Moon" (1978) and "The Photography of Space Exploration" (1981). The former was selected as a Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibit, and the latter was named "the most unexpected, innovative, and up-to-date photography exhibition of 1981" by The New York Times.

Since 1982, he has created a variety of projects for WGBH Boston, including books, activity guides, calendars, and educational toys. He has also written nearly a thousand program press releases for NOVA, Masterpiece Theatre, MYSTERY!, and other PBS series; and he has conducted scores of print interviews with notable actors, directors, scientists, and other participants in WGBH productions.

Always fascinated with museums, he has developed ideas, written text, and acquired photos for exhibits on aviation, astronomy, physics, forensics, natural history, and railroads, among other subjects.

A native Texan, he studied modern French and German literature at the University of Texas at Austin, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1974. Using a grant from the university, he started a small press that published the first English translations of the forgotten plays by French primitive painter Henri Rousseau, famous for The Sleeping Gypsy.

Though the plays didn't sell, he used his press experience to get a book design job in New York City, through which he met his wife. They now have two grown children and live in central Massachusetts.