Bret McCabe first moved to Baltimore in 1988 to study biomedical engineering at the Johns Hopkins University. He left six (ahem) years later with a degree in anthropology. The college loan tally for his undergraduate career made the prospect of borrowing more money for grad school terrifying, so he decided to embark upon a highly lucrative and prestigious career as a writer. That's right: he worked as a temporary freelance medical transcriptionist and medical science research grant writer. Extremely patient editors let him start writing for an alternative weekly in Dallas in 1996. Since he has stumbled upward—or at least sideways—writing about music, film, and performing and visual arts for a variety of different web sites, journals, and print publications, some of which are still in operation today. In 2001 he returned to Baltimore to write for the Baltimore City Paper, and in 2011 he joined Johns Hopkins Magazine. He is still paying off his college loans.