A prominent, longtime member of the Washington, D.C., literary community, Paul Grayson served as a weather observer in World War II in the U.S. Air Force for four years, including two years in mainland Alaska and the Aleutian Islands.  He has a B.S. in botany and an M.S. and Ph.D. in agricultural economics.  Prior to retirement, he worked as a statistician and economist for the Census Bureau, Social Security Administration, and the IRS.  His poems have appeared in Mercury, Comment, Phoenix, Quirks, and the Statistical Reporter.  He has published research papers in the Journal of Farm Economics, Statistics of Income Bulletin, and elsewhere.  He has been a featured reader of his poetry on satellite radio and at Mariposa, the Kensington Library, and other D.C. venues.