Most authors had previous careers before they turned to full-time writing.
It’s just natural – writers have to have something to write about and life experiences count. Rare is the author who blooms early and continues through a long career.
I’m always interested to know that so many mystery writers come from newspaper backgrounds. Of course, the fact that I sent more than 30 years working for newspapers has a lot to do with it.
Michael Connelly, Laura Lippman, Elaine Viets, Jonathon King, Clea Simon, P.J. Parrish, Brad Parks, and many more all worked for newspapers during their career.
So did William Dietrich , left, who writes the Ethan Gage series, the latest of which is The Barbary Pirates.
Dietrich shared a Pulitzer for the Seattle Times for coverage of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and was one of the first reporters to the scene of that story. He also covered the eruption of Mount St. Helens, losing a photographer friend in that disaster. He left the Seattle Times in 2008.
A Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and the recipient of journalism fellowships from the National Science Foundation, Woods Hole, and Scripps, Dietrich’s newspaper career took him around the world.
These included flying with the Blue Angels, skimming Dakota farms on a B-52, aircraft carriers, a Trident submarine, an Indian sweat lodge, Eskimo villages, mines a mile deep, the Kitt Peak astronomical observatory, a Russian missile-tracking ship (where he vomited in the admiral’s cabin), an icebreaker in Antarctica, oceanographic research vessels, Congress, and the Pentagon.
And if all that weren’t enough, he now teaches environmental journalism and writing at his alma mater Western Washington University.
Dietrich is now starting his tour for The Barbary Pirates, which include a stop at Sleuthfest.
Just reading his bio – I am exhausted. I’m supposed to introduce Dietrich at library event in a couple of weeks. I better rest up.
And by the way, you former journalists, tell us when you left the business and began writing full time.
