Birth:
David Wroblewski was born in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin in 1959.David Wroblewski's Background:
David Wroblewski was born in a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and grew up in the middle of the rural, dairy country part of the state. As a teen, Wroblewski wrote creatively and even won a Wisconsin arts contest with a short story he wrote about a pack of wolves.He put his pen down when he decided to pursue acting at the University of Wisconsin. In the end, he chose the practical over the creative and graduated with a computer sciences degree, which led to a 25 year career as a software developer.
David Wroblewski has lived in or around Boulder, Colorado since the early 1990s. Currently, he shares his Westminster, Colorado home with writer Kimberly McClintock, their dog Lola, and their cat Mitsou.
David Wroblewski's Writing:
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a suspense novel about the adventures of the mute teenager named in the title and his faithful companion, Almondine. The pair lead idyllic lives on the Wisconsin farm where Edgar's family raises a particularly intelligent breed of dogs like Almondine until Edgar's father's sudden death and the arrival of a conniving uncle throws the duo's lives into turmoil.The Story of Edgar Sawtelle has been endorsed by many, including Stephen King, who called it "a novel about the human heart, and the mysteries that live there," but it was Oprah Winfrey's September 2008 selection of Wroblewski's debut novel for her book club that launched the author decidedly into the spotlight.
David Wroblewski and Dogs:
In creating a mythology around the unusual dogs bred on the Sawtelle farm in his novel, the author posed the question, “How far could we go if we stopped breeding dogs for silly physical traits and concentrated instead on intelligence and imagination?”Wroblewski cites two books that were influential in pursuing this line of thought: Working Dogs by Elliot Humphrey and Lucien Warner, a 1934 work of nonfiction which documented an effort to produce a strain of particularly intelligent dogs, and Adam's Task by Vicki Hearne which also scientifically explores the various implications of animal training.
For readers interested in the ideas about dogs and dog training that Wroblewski raises in The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, there is a generously annotated list of further reading on David Wroblewski's web site.
