Cold Storage, Alaska (Straley) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Redwood, California, USA
• Rasied—Seattle, Washington
• Education—B.A., University of Washington
• Awards—Shamus Award; Spotted Owl Award
• Currently—lives in Sitka, Alsaka


John Straley is a poet and author of detective fiction. He currently resides in Sitka, Alaska.

Born in Redwood City, California, Starley grew up in the Seattle, Washingon, area and attended high school in New York City. Straley trained, with encouragement from his parents, to be a horseshoer He attended Grinnell College before transferring to the University of Washington for a degree in writing.

After college and a stint in Eastern Washington, he followed his wife to Sitka, Alaska in 1977. After moving through a number of jobs he became a private investigator and, in 1985, a staff investigator for the Alaska Public Defender. As an investigator, he continued to write.

After being turned down by publishers numerous times, in 1991 he received a tip from friend and anthropologist Richard Nelson that New York City-based Soho Press was interested in detective fiction novels. Upon submitting his manuscript for The Woman Who Married a Bear, Soho Press expressed interest in his work. After a successful run of mysteries that has garnered critical acclaim, he is now looking outside of his trademark Cecil Younger series for future books.

In 2006, he was named writer laureate for the State of Alaska; he served in that position until 2008.

In 2008, Alaska Northwest Books published Straley's The Big Both Ways, a historical fiction work based in the Pacific Northwest. Since then his work has been primarily in creating poetry, except for his 2014 crime story, Cold Storage, Alaska.

Writing
Cecil Younger series
• 1992 - The Woman Who Married a Bear, Shamus Award
• 1993 - The Curious Eat Themselves
• 1996 - The Music of What Happens, Spotted Owl Award
• 1997 - Death and the Language of Happiness
• 1998 - The Angels Will not Care
• 2001 - Cold Water Burning

Later books
• 2008 - The Big Both Ways   
• 2008 - The Rising and the Rain
• 2014 - Storage, Alaska

Short stories
• "Life Before the War" - published in Men from Boys
• "Finding Lou" - published in The Mysterious North
   
Essays
• Numerous essays, published in The Nation and Alaska magazine
• "Love, Crime and Joyriding on a Dead-End Road"—published in The Book of the Tongass (1999) (Author bio rom Wikipedia. Retrieved 3/26/2014.)