David Drury was born in an island military hospital that has long since been abandoned to ghosts. He has survived Texas tornadoes, Pacific Rim volcanoes and Japanese earthquakes, and now lives in Seattle, Washington, where nothing bad could ever happen. His short fiction has appeared on National Public Radio, in Best American Nonrequired Reading (2003, 2019), Best Christian Short Stories, ZYZZYVA, and elsewhere. His first-person essays have appeared on CNN, in Huffington Post, and elsewhere.

David is the son of a Baptist preacher. In spite of this, or because of it, he has been kicked out of every casino in Las Vegas. His diligence at blackjack earned him the designation Most Notorious Card Counter in America. David is currently in pre-production on podcast and TV versions of his faith-meets-high-stakes-gambling memoir The God Card.

David made a rock-and-roll movie in Tokyo, Japan. He continues to write music and lyrics for films and albums as a member of the band Tennis Pro.

Informed by his undergraduate studies in creative writing and his graduate-level studies in the Parables of Jesus and other misunderstood theologies (Regent College/University of British Columbia), David’s fiction is generally short, playful, experimental, spiritually curious, and as hopeful as it is dark.

SHORT STORIES

“There once was a lake that fell in love with an onion. This is merely what we 100 percent know.”

”The road is called Tongue of Tongues, and where it licks at a scorched tree line, it tells a story.”

“Moscow: Who is this?
Transmission: [barking sound]”

“The boy turned plenty into plenty more, and all of it into an abundance of barely anything. In this way, he became a man.”

“One spring morning, a sinkhole opened up at the far end of the elementary school.”

“Widower Enmit Wessel held his coat closed with pale knuckles and walked home through a wind so strong it sheared a sheet of plywood from the high window of the mortuary building, which had been abandoned for years.”

“To those who believed this was possible, thank you. Your faith has meant nearly everything. If you were here right now, you would be witness to one truly humbled man typing away at his ergonomic standing desk.”

“When the house lamps got to talking, they talked about the sun.”

“There’s no good way to say it. I don’t know if it was the souls of chickens or the tiny ghosts or something more dreadful, but when we moved into our tiny house, something came attached. Something came along with us, and I am compelled to tell you what has happened as a result.”

The Second Book of Job {Wigleaf}
A History of the World {Wigleaf}
Propitiation {Jesuit Media Lab}
The Altitude of Sinking Dreams {Atticus Review}
The Murderous History of Tumbleweeds
{Cheap Pop}
Sackcloth and Ashley {Jellyfish Review}
Fire and Ice {100 Word Story}
Call it Even {PCC Inscape}
When the Lights Came Up {Matchbook}
The Brighter Light {Short Edition}
The Great Curtain {Short Edition}

“The ancients wrote myths, Aesop wrote fables, and whenever well-groomed religious types in the New Testament made a public display of plying Jesus with pointed questions of moral clarity, Jesus answered with short fiction.”

“My work order was straightforward. I was handed tens of thousands of dollars in cash and directed to the casino to play beatable blackjack. I was to record my results and bring back any winnings.”

“If you are like me, capable of distracting yourself from the very thing you’d most like to be doing, congratulations. You might be a creative writer.”

MORE

• David spoke about his fiction writing process with author Tommy Dean. Read the interview here.

• The banner image above was drawn by Robyn O’Neil (Do You Have Any Questions?, 2017, graphite on paper, 8¼ x 12 inches). This as a prize for winning a writing contest she hosted on her podcast Me Reading Stuff.

• Image below courtesy of McMillan Creative.

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