SINGAPORE – American science-fiction writer Ted Chiang, 55, majored in computer science at Brown University. He thought he would one day work as a computer programmer, but ended up as a technical writer instead.

“There was a recruiting session, and a representative from a company was talking about the jobs that they had. Another student said, ‘Are you interviewing for technical writers?’ And they said, ‘Sure, send us a sample.’ I was like, hmm, that’s an interesting idea. I had written some articles for a tiny computer magazine and actually had samples of my work that I could submit,” Chiang says via a Zoom call.