David Lee Corley

I’ve written 14 novels and 24 screenplays, four of which became motion pictures. I’ve written in a wide variety of genres but nowadays I mostly write historical war fiction with lots of action and suspense. I love the lessons history can teach us if we pay attention. I pride myself on being historically and technically accurate, but I am far from perfect. My favorite authors are Cormac McCarthy because he dislikes unnecessary punctuation, Ernest Hemingway because he wrote The Old Man and the Sea, and Elmore Leonard because he cracks me up. I would add Stephen King because he writes interesting characters, but I don’t want to be a hog.

I walk my own path in life and seek the extraordinary. I’ve been around the world three times and visited 56 countries. Like my father, I love seeing what’s over the next hill. I scuba dived the Great Barrier Reef, touched the giant stone heads of Siem Reap, got mugged in Guadalajara, hiked the Great Wall of China, sailed around the karst islands of Halong Bay, fell under the spell of flamenco in Madrid, awed by the carved stone buildings of Petra, climbed up to the Greek monasteries of Meteora, bitten by a huge spider in Laos (not fun), and visited dozens of UNESCO World Heritage sites. Earth is truly amazing. Please take care of it after I’m gone.

I have three offspring that are now adults and show little fear to try new things. They used to listen to me. Now, not so much. Probably a good thing. I live in Thailand because I never need to worry about slipping on a patch of ice and falling on my ass. Plus, it’s paradise inhabited by kind people with white-toothed smiles and the food is great.