David Lee Finkle

David Lee Finkle began his writing and cartooning career in Kindergarten during fire safety week, when he was asked to draw a picture of what students should do if the school catches fire and in response drew a picture of children roasting marshmallows over the smouldering embers of the school. Amazingly, he went on to become a teacher, and is currently a middle school Language Arts teacher in Florida. His comic strip about teaching middle schoolers, "Mr. Fitz", has been running in the Daytona Beach News-Journal since 2000 (he has now drawn nearly 2,500 strips). His first book, "Making My Escape", about an overly imaginative middle schooler, was published in 2002. His Scholastic Professional book for teachers, "Writing Extraordinary Essays" contains 84 of his cartoons (he counted them) and was released in 2008. He recently self published (through lulu.com) a fantasy book with his 13 year old son, Christopher, entitled "Portents." They hope to have it available on Amazon.com in the near future. He is currently working on a second book for Scholastic, "Teaching Students to Make Writing Visual and Vivid." His website is www.mrfitz.com.