Biography of Terry Trueman

Terry Trueman was born on December 15, 1947 in Birmingham, Alabama and moved to Seattle when he was only about a year and a half old. He went to the University of Washington and earned a B.A. in 1971. He got married while still in college and went on to be married three other times after that. After he got out of college, he taught in Australia for two years, then came back to the Pacific Northwest and earned an M.A in psychology in 1975. In 1979, he became a father when his son was born with cerebral palsy. This experience changed Trueman’s career and life.

Trueman began his career of writing by doing book and movie reviews for his local public radio station and town newspaper. Trueman’s growth as a writer was both slow and painful as he described it. He published several chapbooks through the 1990’s. Trueman was a poet, then turned into a novelist when he released his first novel Stuck in Neutral in 2001.This book was meant to be a horror story but as he was writing it, he turned it into a book with a comic, ironic twist to it. Trueman enjoys writing about things close to his own life. His models as a writer are Charles Bukowski and Raymond Carver because their line is straight and direct as Trueman puts it. Trueman has strong feelings about real issues in life, our country, and our culture which shows in his books. Trueman’s style of writing about issues in life and about things that is close to him paid off as he has won several awards for the books he has written.