About Gary L. Stuart

From the day I entered law school, I’ve been reading case and statutory law and writing about legal conundrums and flaws in our criminal and civil justice systems. I’ve always read novels, nonfiction, and historical fiction by great authors who were never corrupted by the staid habits of transactional lawyers. I write long form, interspersed with the occasional blog, op-ed, or essay. One of the unexpected benefits of reading the law is learning how to write about it. Somewhere along the trajectory from a baby lawyer to a senior one, I became intoxicated with blending nonfiction with fiction in books, rather than legal documents. After spending thirty years in courtrooms trying cases, I started writing about them. That led to writing novels while borrowing from famous historical settings and lesser-known characters. I spent thirty years as a trial lawyer organizing and memorizing critical information for a judge and jury. Now I use that experience to write vivid fiction and immersive nonfiction. I moved away from trial practice to teaching law students how to use creative writing technique to tell their client’s stories, in short form.

F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.” The same could be said of the transition from trying cases to fiction writing. I’ve been holding my breath since 1994 waiting for galley proofs and book reviews. Anais Nin spoke for all of us when she said, “We write to taste life twice.”