Rich Barlow writes for Boston University’s news website and the opinion page of WBUR, a Boston NPR station. A native New Jerseyan, he graduated from Dartmouth College, spent 20 years as a small-town newspaper reporter, and wrote the religion column and book reviews for The Boston Globe. He writes picture book biographies and ghost stories and is the proud dad of a teenaged son. Other than reading, his hobbies are activities at which he’s not particularly good but that are still fun, such as fencing.