Andy, yer asking for a speech!
     The Ep book came to be after I started publishing EPINET, a
newsletter devoted to the Eps. Two of my subscribers are smarter than
me, so when I suggested the book, they said something like --sure.
     We've been working on it for the better part of four years
unless I lost count. You see, Lenny Brown never forgets anything. He
is the master of the descriptions. Bruce Neville is our computer
genius and as a librarian for a major University, he has access to
most of the manuscripts, monographs, and references we needed.
    If you are going to "Do" a family, it's nice to have a pretty
good assortment of them to begin with. There are about 600 Eps. After
photographing my own shell---and Lenny's---we visited the major
museums in the US of A. There we researched and photographed what
they had. Our principle sources were the Smithsonian, the Delaware
Museum, the Philly Ac. of Nat. Sci., and the Los Angeles County
museum. The staff at all these places welcomed us and gave us all the
help they could. Then we had to contact other Museums for their help.
We received specimens to photograph from London, Paris, Wales,
Australia, two in South Africa, Japan---and help from individuals all
over the world who were aware of our project.
     My advice to people out there in shell-land who want to write
their own book is this: find a family with a lot fewer than 600
species.
          Art