I'm never sure: do you write your own bio and web page stuff in first or third person point of view?  This used to be written in third (DAVID FINKLE is a native of upstate New York) but I've decided that's a little weird to talk about yourself in third person...  So I'm hereby declaring this bio a first person zone.  I, David Lee Finkle was born and raised in a very, very small town called Round Lake, just below Saratoga Springs, New York.  I then came south to get a B.A. in English with a minor in Theater from Stetson University, went back north for a year to do my student teaching at Russell Sage College in Troy, NY, but then returned to Florida after getting engaged to (and later marrying) my wife, Andrea. 

As a boy, I learned to read so that I could read the newspaper funnies by myself instead of having them read to me.  I drew my first cartoon in kindergarten.  During fire safety week, Mrs. Castle asked us all to draw pictures of what we should do if the school was on fire.  Did I draw everyone following the teacher out in an orderly fashion?  No, I drew smiling children roasting marshmallows over the smoldering embers of the school.  Later, I started drawing comic strips about a dog named Poochey (where I got that name I have no idea), and took over a  closet in my bedroom as my studio.  My friends, the Vallelungas, and I started our own media conglomerate called "Finkle-Vallelunga Productions" and wrote cartoon books, children's books, and magazines.  We sold these items to passers-by from a card table in the front yard.  Since we lived on dead-end streets, sales were not very brisk, but my relatives kicked in to buy some of our wares.  When we hit junior high, we began plotting our greatest triumph, a science fiction epic entitled "Nebula."  I've since fictionalized our efforts in my young adult novel, Making My Escape,  which was recently published by May Davenport Publishers and is available at maydavenportpublishers.com and at Amazon.com. 

Making My Escape is the story of a teenage boy named Daniel Finn who uses his overactive imagination to escape from his problems at home and at school.  He is daydreaming about an epic Science Fiction movie he is making with his friends, and the two stories, real and fantastic, begin to parallel each other. It's similar to both "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, as well as my own childhood, and continually flip-flops from reality to fantasy and back again.  It also deals with some heavy home issues, but, I hope, has a light enough touch to not be depressing.

Zapping back in time, though, in High School I wrote a comic strip called  "Camilot the Unicorn" that appeared in my  hometown newspaper, The Round Lake Journal.  I also tried a couple of fantasy novels and wrote and directed a play about wizards called Gamyarie (long before Harry Potter was a twinkle in Rowling's eye, thank you very much). In 1985, I graduated from Shenendehowa High School and headed south to Stetson University.  Two of my strips ran in the Stetson Reporter from 1985 - 1989: "The Mod Hatter" and "The Forest of Arden." I first got the idea for Mr. Fitz when teaching at Taylor Middle-High School in Pierson. I decided some of the events taking place in my classroom might make good fodder for a humorous strip, and also provide some therapy to help me deal with the frustrations of teaching. I worked up a six week sample, and started running on the funny pages in March of 2000, the same week Making My Escape was accepted for publication. "Mr. Fitz" currently appears in the Daytona Beach News-Journal five times weekly. I live in Deland, Florida, with my wife, Andrea (who one of my editors refers to as Mrs. Fitz). Our two children, Christopher and Alexandra, insisted that Mr. and Mrs. Fitz needed to have children so they could be in the strip: hence the recent birth of Mr. and Mrs. Fitz's twins, Tom and Jen.  Chris and Alex picked out the names, based on imaginary characters they used to play in their elaborate make-believe stories concerning Jedi Thomas the Tank Engine vs. the Evil Sith Lord Barbies who plot to take over the world as they work incognito as McDonald's drive-thru workers.  (I am not making this up.)  We've gotten a little beyond those games now.  Now they have sword fights on the stump left in our front yard after three hurricanes.  Both of them sometimes contribute ideas to the strip.

In 2004, I was named Volusia County Teacher of the Year for 2005, an honor from which I hope never to recover.  It has been deeply meaningful and a complete, unadulterated blast-- always a nice combination.  I am currently finishing my second book, a grown-up thriller called Faithful Unto Death, keeping up with Mr. Fitz, and, of course, teaching.