About

David Harris Griffith was born in the mid 1960s to an artist and a noted psychologist. He has a bachelor’s degree in English with a specialty in creative writing, had enough hours to get a minor in photography if the university had offered one, enough hours of psychology to meet the prerequisites for admission to the master’s program in psych, and enough time in the theater department to… well he spent a lot of time there, surely it was good for something. (Every experience comes into play for a writer one way or another.)

David has been studying and teaching Shao Lym Ryu, an eclectic martial art, since the mid 1980’s. Despite being in charge of the school, he is far from being a master. He doesn’t believe in the concept of anyone being a master. To be a master implies there is nothing left to learn, and that is impossible. Is there a field of human study where further study does not also raise further questions?

David has worked as a professional photographer. That pursuit was relegated to a back burner when he discovered that while taking photos is a joy, managing that kind of business is far less of one.

On a good day, David is a marginally competent bassist, and has played with several local bands over the years. On a bad day, David is happy that not many people pay much attention to what the bassist is playing. One of the bands David has played with was called Whisper Garden, and was named after the song Whisper Garden, which was written by Ben Brown (a good friend of David’s) about David’s novel The Whisper Garden.

David is a passionate poker player, and has a well reviewed guide to winning no limit texas hold’em available on kindle.

Recently, David has taken an interest in the cigar box guitar movement, and has been building cigar box guitars. He loves transforming junk and cheap supplies into playable instruments and finds great joy in answering the question, “how can I put strings on that?”

None of these are disparate activities though. Everything influences everything else. Rhythm effects sparring and storytelling. Understanding combat plays into poker. A picture is worth a thousand words, but understanding how to compose a picture is also understanding how to tell a story–or is that the other way around? Studying self defense means being able to write about violence more realistically.

David also feels very strange writing about himself in third person, but feels like he’d sound pretentious writing a bio such as this one in first person.