Go Back to Mobile Site

Tish Davidson
Tish Davidson, Writery

The key to good race calling and storytelling is to see the conflict, build the tension and then knock 'em dead with the release. - Tom Durkin, horse race caller and essayist

Bio

I write books and stories, and publishers pay me for them. Sometimes this still surprises me. I never intended to become a writer. When I was small growing up in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, I wanted to be a polar bear. That didn't work out, so I became a biologist. But after earning a bachelor's degree from the College of William and Mary and a master's degree from Dartmouth College, I discovered I was all thumbs in the lab. Laboratory research was definitely not in my future.

In my first "real" job, I discovered that a lot of people don't like to write. But I've always loved putting ideas on paper. Every job I've ever had became a writing job. When I worked as the quality control director at a vegetable cannery, I wrote everything from reports for the Food and Drug Administration to responses to customer complaints. When I worked as a teacher at a training school for nannies, who wrote the school newsletter? You guessed it. Me. Then I was asked to write a newspaper column about games and another one about parenting. Finally I just gave up and became a full-time professional writer. Over the past twenty years, I have written everything from restaurant reviews to true-life stories to mysteries to textbooks.

To date, I have published thirteen books. The most recent one, The Vaccine Debate explains the science behind vaccines, how they work, and why they are controversial. Writing this book gave me a chance to share my fascination with human biology in non-technical language high school students and adult can understand. My next book, What You Need to Know About Diabetes will be published in late 2019.

Most of my books are nonfiction books for young people. Two of them, Prejudice and Facing Competition (both published by Scholastic) were selected as California Reader Notable Books. The book I most enjoyed researching was African American Scientists and Inventors (Mason Crest). A close second in terms of interesting research was Global Trade in the Ancient World (Mason Crest).

I also write fiction and creative nonfiction that has been published by Harlequin, Adams Media, Scribe's Press and in the California Writers Literary Review. In my non-writing time, I volunteer for Guide Dogs for the Blind, cook, garden, and read. I recently traveled to Hong Kong to visit family and spent three weeks in New York City visiting museums and seeing Broadway shows.

Want to learn more about me? Read my interview with David Alan Binder



Copyright 2019 - Tish Davidson