About David Parrott

Biography:

Bio:
David L. Parrott was born in Detroit, Michigan and first moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and then Sandviken, Sweden as a boy. He returned to Pennsylvania during elementary school and graduated from DuBois Area High School in 1975. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in theology from Melodyland School of Theology in Anaheim, California, and then moved to Boston where he studied church history and languages at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary with some coursework at Harvard Divinity School. He earned a master’s degree in historical theology in 1980. While in Massachusetts he worked restoring colonial homes for several years and then returned to his hometown of DuBois, PA where he continued working as a carpenter and ran a small construction business. He also continued to pursue an interest in fiction writing.
In 1989 he married Leslie Amamoto, and together they have two children, Travis and Lauren Parrott. Because his wife is of Japanese-American descent he began researching the internment of most of the Japanese Americans (including all of his wife’s extended family) during World War Two. This resulted in an historical novel titled Murder in Manzanar published by the author in 2006.
This mystery was preceded by the self-published The Curious Case of Punxsy Phil (2002) which was a humorous mystery story based on the legend of weather predicting groundhog “Punxsy Phil.” Before it could be sold, this work had to be approved by The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, which owns the rights to the name “Punxsy Phil.”
The author’s interest in the Civil War is related to his work in church history at seminary as well as the connections between the oil region of Western Pennsylvania and the battlefields of the Civil War. The author’s nephew owns a farm in Gettysburg and a number of the author’s friends are active Civil War re-enactors and historians. This has helped with the research necessary to accurately write The Last Best Hope. It has also helped to have a sister who teaches writing at Lakeland Community College in Mentor, Ohio: Dr. Jayne Magee, who has helped improve the story with her insightful comments.
Currently the author works as a professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in the Communications Media department, and teaches courses on communications theory and scriptwriting. He is completing a doctorate in that field, with a research interest in foreign language acquisition in 3D virtual worlds using avatars, while continuing to write in his spare time.

Location:

DuBois, Pennsylvania, USA

Occupation:

Professor in Department of Communications,

Reading:

Thomas Kuhn "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." and "The Civil War, Vol II" Shelby Foote

Just Finished Reading:

"Genius, The Richard Feynmann Story" James Gleick