Michael McClelland

1958

Michael McClelland spent ten years as a United Press International correspondent, covering Florida's political news before he decided to go back to school and earn a doctorate in creative writing. He wrote more than 5,000 newspaper, radio, and magazine stories during his time as a journalist. After graduating, he took a job at Wittenberg University, in Ohio, as an English professor, where he serves since 2000, and decided to devote his free time to writing fiction. His first attempt has brought much positive response. McClelland used to read always as a child. He preferred books to play in the schoolyard and would have to smuggle novels in his backpack so he would have something to read during recess. It was this love of reading that pushed him into his writing career. McClelland's first book, Oyster Blues, combines the fictional elements that he accumulated during those years of reading about Tarzan and creatures from out of space, as well as his investigations of Florida politics. The protagonists of this story are Jane Ellen Ashley, a beautifully sexy Floridian oyster shucker, who is dirt-poor and, like the author, has an unquenchable desire to read, and "Happy" Harry Harper, an unemployed English professor who thinks he can take on the role of the private eye because he has read so many detective stories. Both characters, coincidentally, think they have killed someone. Jane accidentally pushed a prominent senator's son into a lake, and she believes that he drowned. Harry is not so sure what he did. All he knows is that he fired a gun, and someone may have been shot. So Jane and Harry are both on the run from the law, and while running, they get involved with gangsters and eventually meet one another and fall in love. Other characters include crooked politicians, fishermen, and tourists, Jane's drunken brother, and a man with a plastic throat.

Michael McClelland Edit Profile

also known as Mac McClelland

educator writer

Background

Michael McClelland was born in 1958.

Education

Michael McClelland graduated from Florida State University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts, a Master of Arts, and a Doctor of Philosophy.

Career

Michael McClelland spent ten years as a United Press International correspondent, covering Florida's political news before he decided to go back to school and earn a doctorate in creative writing. He wrote more than 5,000 newspaper, radio, and magazine stories during his time as a journalist. After graduating, he took a job at Wittenberg University, in Ohio, as an English professor, where he serves since 2000, and decided to devote his free time to writing fiction. His first attempt has brought much positive response.

McClelland used to read always as a child. He preferred books to play in the schoolyard and would have to smuggle novels in his backpack so he would have something to read during recess. It was this love of reading that pushed him into his writing career.

McClelland's first book, Oyster Blues, combines the fictional elements that he accumulated during those years of reading about Tarzan and creatures from out of space, as well as his investigations of Florida politics. The protagonists of this story are Jane Ellen Ashley, a beautifully sexy Floridian oyster shucker, who is dirt-poor and, like the author, has an unquenchable desire to read, and "Happy" Harry Harper, an unemployed English professor who thinks he can take on the role of the private eye because he has read so many detective stories. Both characters, coincidentally, think they have killed someone. Jane accidentally pushed a prominent senator's son into a lake, and she believes that he drowned. Harry is not so sure what he did. All he knows is that he fired a gun, and someone may have been shot. So Jane and Harry are both on the run from the law, and while running, they get involved with gangsters and eventually meet one another and fall in love. Other characters include crooked politicians, fishermen, and tourists, Jane's drunken brother, and a man with a plastic throat.

Achievements

Michael McClelland is widely known as a writer and educator. He teaches at Wittenberg University for twenty years. As a writer, he is currently the author of two books.

Works

book
- Tattoo Blues
  (Tattoo Blues is a rollicking and playful comic-mystery, f...)
  2004
- Oyster Blues
  (When a waitress from an oyster bar in Appalachicola, Flor...)
  2002

Interests

Playing acoustic guitar
Sport & Clubs

Florida State Seminoles, Atlanta Braves

Main Photo