Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

David Henry Sterry Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

David Henry Sterry
Photo: davidhenrysterry.com

David Henry Sterry

David Henry Sterry Biography

David Henry Sterry is an author, a performer, muckraker, educator, activist, and book doctor. His first book, Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent, was published in 2001. Prior to becoming an author, Sterry was a professional actor and screenwriter.

David is unique as an author in that he brings together his love for the written word with his love for performance. As an actor, he performed with everyone from Milton Berle to Will Smith to Michael Caine to Zippy the Chimp. He performed in over 750 commercials, starred in HBO's Emmy Award-winning Encyclopedia, and emceed at Chippendale's in New York City. As a screenwriter, he wrote for Disney, Fox and Nickelodeon. After his memoir, Chicken, was published, David put his performance and playwriting skills to work and wrote and performed a one-man show based on the book. After a highly praised debut in San Francisco, David took his one-man show to Edinburgh's Fringe Festival where it was named the #1 play in the UK by The Independent week after week. For each and every book David publishes, he puts together a unique and robust publicity and marketing plan which utilizes his performance skills. Examples include: a 6-hour workshop on how to get published at Stanford University, a high concept event like "The Art of the Memoir" which he's done everywhere from City Lights to the Strand to the 92nd St Y, a cutting-edge reading series like "Sex Worker Literati", which has become a sold-out monthly event at Bowery Poetry Club in NYC.

David also makes sure to stay in the public eye between book publications through blogging for the Huffington Post, writing about everything from politics, to same-sex marriage, to college football corruption, to the newest innovations in publishing, to the NFL cracking down on snow angels. He has also appeared in many anthologies (his story in San Francisco Noir was a finalist for the Henry Miller Award), and writing for publications such as The London Times, The San Francisco Chronicle and Penthouse.

David has taught at Stanford University, University of New Orleans, Reed College, UCLA, SF State, and the US Department of Justice. He's assisted lawyers, models, architects, and writers to present themselves and their ideas with clarity and passion. He's also helped many amateur writers become professional authors.

David Henry Sterry's website

This bio was last updated on 10/17/2015. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Interview

David Henry Sterry offers a candid look at Chicken and discusses under-age commercial sexual exploitation, what got him into the business and how he got out.

Why did you write this book?
Ever since I was 17, I had a black cloud hanging over my life. I lost my house, lost my wife, I was miserable, no matter how much success I had, and I was mean to anyone who got close to me. Keeping this misery inside was killing me. So I wrote my story, always trying to answer the question: How did a nice boy like me, from a nice family, with a good education, end up in this strange, savage, and abusive world, as a young man for rent?

Did you come from a bad neighborhood, or an abusive family?
Not at all. I grew up in nice neighborhoods where kids played ball in front yards, the Tooth Fairy left a quarter under your pillow, we had corn on the cob and merry-go-rounds, and PTA meetings. My parents are from England, they came America with very little, and after years of working their butts off, they were divorced, on the verge of going bankrupt, and both in therapy. Kind of the new American Dream.

Did writing this book change your life?
It was very difficult to write this book. There were times when I would get ripping headaches, like my head was in a vice being tightened by a speed freak. And I would put on movies while I wrote, like Gone With the Wind. I watched that a lot. And ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Books by this Author

Books by David Henry Sterry at BookBrowse
Chicken jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for David Henry Sterry but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Ryan Knighton

    Ryan Knighton

    Ryan Knighton is the author of Cockeyed and C’mon Papa: Dispatches from a Dad in the Dark. He has written numerous comic essays for Esquire, The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, Canadian Living, The Believer, The ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Chicken

    Try:
    Cockeyed
    by Ryan Knighton

  • David Sedaris

    David Sedaris

    David Sedaris is a playwright and a regular commentator for National Public Radio. He is also the author of the bestselling Barrel Fever, Naked, Holidays on Ice, and Me Talk Pretty One Day. He travels extensively though ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Chicken

    Try:
    Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
    by David Sedaris

We recommend 3 similar authors

View all 3 Read-Alikes

Non-members can see 2 results. Become a member
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket: The Women
    The Women
    by Kristin Hannah
    Kristin Hannah's latest historical epic, The Women, is a story of how a war shaped a generation ...
  • Book Jacket: The Wide Wide Sea
    The Wide Wide Sea
    by Hampton Sides
    By 1775, 48-year-old Captain James Cook had completed two highly successful voyages of discovery and...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

At times, our own light goes out, and is rekindled by a spark from another person.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.