About my journey…
I self-published my first novel when I was ten years old - a cautionary and highly autobiographical tale called Swinging Danger - about a boy who builds a rope swing despite the objections of his parents, falls off as they predicted, and breaks his wrist. Self-published in that I ran it off a hand-cranked printing press that my parents gave me on my birthday.
I published my "second" novel - Penance - when I was forty. That's the novel that won the 1996 Edgar Award for Best First Novel from the Mystery Writers of America.
In between I worked as a journalist - I was fired as editor of my high school newspaper for printing an anti-war editorial. Course you need to understand, I attended an all-boys Catholic military school during the height of the Viet Nam war. You would've fired me, too.
I worked as a stringer for the Minneapolis Tribune, while still in college, covering events the senior reporters didn't have time for: Big Ten gymnastics, AAU swimming, World Team Tennis, Nine-man football in Fergus Falls.
Later, I became a news reporter for the Albert Lea Evening Tribune in southern Minnesota and, after a few years, returned to sports as a reporter for the Grand Forks Herald in North Dakota.
I eventually drifted into advertising, working as a copywriter and creative director for several prominent Twin City agencies on a number of national accounts such as Federal Express, 3M, Jim Beam, Hormel Foods and the California Institute of Technology. I even managed to win a couple of awards along the way that you probably never heard of like the CLIO and One Show.
It was while I was partner and creative director of my own agency - Gerber/Housewright Advertising in St. Paul, MN - that I decided to get back to the kind of writing I most wanted to do since I was a child - books.
So, two months after Penance was published - and five months before I won the Edgar - I sold my agency to my partner. Since then I have published 27 novels, a bunch of short stories, been nominated for ten literary awards, and won four, including three Minnesota Book Awards. I also work as a freelance writer and occasionally teach at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis.
Not to suggest that it's been all sunshine and lollipops. My publisher, W.W. Norton, dropped my contract following my third book without explanation, although I knew I was in trouble when my publicist called and asked for Steve Housewright. My wife asked, 'Do you mean David Housewright, the Edgar Award-winning novelist?' and the publicist said, 'No, I'm pretty sure his name is Steve.'
Such is the world of publishing. Still, I can't complain.
Imagine my shock and delight when I learned that the Minnesota Historical Society and The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library added my name and face to the Minnesota Writers on the Map, joining such luminaries as Louise Erdrich, Sinclair Lewis, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Maud Hart Lovelace, Laura Ingalls Wilder, August Wilson, William Kent Krueger and Charles M. Schulz.
And getting elected President of the Private Eye Writers of America in 2014 - that was pure gold.