About Author Rick Shands. Born in Princeton, New Jersey, and raised on the Jersey Shore, Rick first moved to the far side of the Atlantic to study architecture at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. Returning to the United States, he moved to New York City to complete a master's in architecture at Columbia University. But the seeds of a life abroad had been sown in London. Rick spent the 1990s mostly in Stockholm, where work took him further abroad to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and to Kuwait. These assignments lead to further work 'abroad' from Sweden, with three years in Malta - which were formative for Frame 39 - followed by: London again, then Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Oman and Riyadh, before a return to London, where he now continues to reside. He was once accurately described by a colleague as a 'peripatetic American architect," not unlike the journeymen master masons of old. His transition from architecture to literature grew from an abiding fascination with the idea of architecture being like stage sets for innumerable, indeterminate dramas.Frame 39 grew out of his numerous travels, his sojourn in Malta, and his time in the multicultural milieu of Abu Dhabi, where he began the writing.
