David Gerard
David Gerard was born David Gerard Jurkiewicz in St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1952. He spent his early years there attending parochial schools and working in his father’s business, Bill’s Shoe Repair.
He earned a master’s degree in literature from the University of Tulsa in 1992 and worked for the Muskogee Phoenix newspaper in Muskogee, Oklahoma, from 1995 to 2010.
His first novel, Judge Not, was based on court trials he covered while in Muskogee, and the novel was the most read book in the Muskogee County Detention Center the year following its publication, 2002.
Gerard’s second novel, God’s Acres, was published by PenUltimate Press in 2010, and the novel earned Gerard the award of best fiction in 2011 from the Oklahoma Center for the Book. Besides the two novels, Gerard also has published a collection of personal columns from his time at the Muskogee Phoenix, Sketches from Muskogee, Oklahoma; a collection of short stories, The Death of Joe Normalkowski; and a menagerie of political cartoons, The Rush to Ignorance.
Gerard resides in Tulsa with his wife of more than 40 years, Audrey (McKinnon), also of St. Joseph. In his spare time, Gerard enjoys birdwatching, drawing and painting, and taking camping trips to America’s parks and wildlife areas.