Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Read-Alikes
David Henry Sterry is an author, a performer, muckraker, educator, activist, and book doctor. His first book, Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent, was published in 2001. Prior to becoming an author, Sterry was a professional actor and screenwriter.
David is unique as an author in that he brings together his love for the written word with his love for performance. As an actor, he performed with everyone from Milton Berle to Will Smith to Michael Caine to Zippy the Chimp. He performed in over 750 commercials, starred in HBO's Emmy Award-winning Encyclopedia, and emceed at Chippendale's in New York City. As a screenwriter, he wrote for Disney, Fox and Nickelodeon. After his memoir, Chicken, was published, David put his performance and playwriting skills to work and wrote and performed a one-man show based on the book. After a highly praised debut in San Francisco, David took his one-man show to Edinburgh's Fringe Festival where it was named the #1 play in the UK by The Independent week after week. For each and every book David publishes, he puts together a unique and robust publicity and marketing plan which utilizes his performance skills. Examples include: a 6-hour workshop on how to get published at Stanford University, a high concept event like "The Art of the Memoir" which he's done everywhere from City Lights to the Strand to the 92nd St Y, a cutting-edge reading series like "Sex Worker Literati", which has become a sold-out monthly event at Bowery Poetry Club in NYC.
David also makes sure to stay in the public eye between book publications through blogging for the Huffington Post, writing about everything from politics, to same-sex marriage, to college football corruption, to the newest innovations in publishing, to the NFL cracking down on snow angels. He has also appeared in many anthologies (his story in San Francisco Noir was a finalist for the Henry Miller Award), and writing for publications such as The London Times, The San Francisco Chronicle and Penthouse.
David has taught at Stanford University, University of New Orleans, Reed College, UCLA, SF State, and the US Department of Justice. He's assisted lawyers, models, architects, and writers to present themselves and their ideas with clarity and passion. He's also helped many amateur writers become professional authors.
David Henry Sterry's website
This bio was last updated on 10/17/2015. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.
Why did you write this book?
Ever since I was 17, I had a black cloud hanging over my life. I lost my
house, lost my wife, I was miserable, no matter how much success I had, and I
was mean to anyone who got close to me. Keeping this misery inside was killing
me. So I wrote my story, always trying to answer the question: How did a nice
boy like me, from a nice family, with a good education, end up in this strange,
savage, and abusive world, as a young man for rent?
Did you come from a bad neighborhood, or an abusive family?
Not at all. I grew up in nice neighborhoods where kids played ball in
front yards, the Tooth Fairy left a quarter under your pillow, we had corn on
the cob and merry-go-rounds, and PTA meetings. My parents are from England, they
came America with very little, and after years of working their butts off, they
were divorced, on the verge of going bankrupt, and both in therapy. Kind of the
new American Dream.
Did writing this book change your life?
It was very difficult to write this book. There were times when I would
get ripping headaches, like my head was in a vice being tightened by a speed
freak. And I would put on movies while I wrote, like Gone With the Wind. I
watched that a lot. And ...
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