Gregory L. Vogt
Photo used with permission of Gregory L. Vogt.
Gregory L. Vogt is a senior project manager with the center for educational outreach at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. His duties focus on space biomedicine, teacher training, and work with graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Vogt began his career as an eighth grade science teacher and later joined the NASA Aerospace Education Services Program. He established the Teaching from Space office at the NASA Johnson Space Center. He is a former science museum director. Vogt is an educational consultant and the author of many curriculum guides and more than 90 juvenile and adult science books.
Interview
What was your favorite book when you were a child?
My favorite book was always the one that my mother or father was reading to me at that moment.
What’s your favorite line from a book?
“So do all who have lived to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide what to do with the time that is given to us.” —The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkein
Who are your top three favorite authors or illustrators?
J. R. R. Tolken, Tony Hillerman, and C. S. Lewis
Why did you want to become an author or illustrator?
I like to tell stories. My books are mostly nonfiction science. Just because I write about real things, it doesn’t mean that I can’t tell stories. Everything we know about our world came because somebody was curious. Each discovery, each fact, has a story behind it.
Do you have any advice for future authors or illustrators?
Practice. You are not a writer unless you write. Write anything you want. It gets easier the more you write. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to put in effort. Writing is always work but it gets more pleasurable when you’ve found your voice. With practice, writing becomes a labor of love.
