David Sheppard

David Sheppard is a literary theorist, researcher and experimentalist exploring natural and psychic phenomena as it relates to storytelling and sleep. He holds a BS from Arizona State University and an MS from Stanford University and has written eleven books, both fiction and nonfiction.

He has had an avid interest in sleep since he was a child. He has always read about sleep and discussed its characteristics and aberrations with anyone he could engage. He has documented many of his more interesting dreams for four decades. He has researched sleep literature for the last twenty years. In addition to In Pursuit of Sleep, he is the author of Novelsmithing, The Structural Foundation of Plot, Character, and Narration, and Story Alchemy: The Quest for the Philosopher’s Stone of Storytelling. He has also written the following books, all available on Amazon:

• Oedipus on a Pale Horse, Journey through Greece in Search of a Personal Mythology.
• The Mysteries, A Novel of Ancient Eleusis, a trilogy.
• The Escape of Bobby Ray Hammer, A Novel of a ’50s Family.
• Introduction to Frankenstein: Origins and Aftermath.
• The Eternal Return: Oedipus, The Tempest, Forbidden Planet.
• Carpathian Vampire: When You’ve Never Known Love (as Lumi Laura)

His poetry has appeared in The Paris Review and in England (The 1987 Arvon International Poetry Competition Anthology judged by Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney). While living in Colorado he was a member of the Rocky Mountain Writers Guild for seven years, participated in its Live Poets Society and Advanced Novel Workshop, and chaired its Literary Society. He founded a novel critique group that lasted ten years. He has attended the Aspen Writers Conference in Colorado and the Sierra Writing Camp in California. He has taught astronomy at New Mexico State University at Carlsbad as well as Novel Writing and Greek Mythology in the Continuing Education Department. He has traveled throughout Western Europe, including traveling Greece alone for two and one half months, and is an amateur photographer and astronomer.

He grew up in California and has lived in Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico, and currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia. He has worked as a farmer, bank teller, electronics technician, combat crew member on ICBM’s, aerospace engineer, library assistant, and has taught astronomy at NMSU-Carlsbad. His thirty-year aerospace career included work on the Viking Project, which landed the first robots on Mars, and many Space Shuttle related projects. On the international Shuttle Earth-Imaging Radar (SIR-C), he was the liaison between NASA and the European Space Agency, working primarily with German and Italian aerospace companies. For three years, he was one of JPL/NASA’s Solar System Ambassadors. He is a senior member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He served eight years in the US Air Force during the Vietnam era, both in the enlisted ranks and as an officer. His greatest love is ancient Greek mythology and religion. He is single and has two grown kids.