David Heidenstam

David Heidenstam’s journeys have included hitch-hiking through Iraq just after the Ba'ath party came to power, two Atlantic crossings on sailboats, and taking his father travelling in the last years of his life. Some travel memories are part of his ‘sort of retrospective blog’, at davidheidenstam.com/footloose His poems have appeared in Acumen, Agenda, Ambit, Blue Unicorn, Cold Mountain Review, The Frogmore Papers, The Journal (UK), Orbis, Prole, Rat’s Ass Review, and Two Thirds North, and in Faber, Carcanet, and other anthologies. Also online in the American Journal of Poetry at www.theamericanjournalofpoetry.com/v8-heidenstam.html

David grew up in Norfolk, England, in the 1950s. Trained as a political scientist, he turned down the offer of a PhD grant, and worked as a labourer, security guard, park-keeper, editor, house renovator, village postman, yacht-delivery cook/crewman, and warden of backpackers' hostels in Ireland. As an occasional writer/editor for the Diagram Group in the 1970s and '80s, he was one of those responsible for the series of Body books (Man's Body, Woman's Body, Child's Body) that together sold several million copies in 16 languages, including a US Book of the Month primary selection, and in many cultures gave ordinary men and women access to health and body information for the first time.

There's a Q&A session with David Heidenstam about Tales for my dog, and the writing life, on Goodreads at https://www.goodreads.com/author/5284565.David_Heidenstam/questions