Danny Thomas Ruiz

Danny Thomas Ruiz was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, in May, 1948. He is the son of Maria Ruiz and Augustine Cuellar. He was given the last name of Dunne in 1956 from his step-father. As a child he travelled extensively abroad and in the U.S. He has 4 daughters and lives with his wife in Stockton, California, where he is a professional educator teaching high school seniors at St. Mary's Catholic high school. He also is an instructor for the junior college, San Joaquin Delta, and is on the faculty for the Center of Professional and Continuing Education at the University of the Pacific where he obtained his Bachelor's Degree in Communication and his Master's Degree in English. Danny Ruiz also has a varied background of nearly 25 years in law enforcement, moving up the ranks with the police department in Tracy, California, east of San Francisco, and the campus police at the University of the Pacific. He has won numerous awards in his law enforcement and academic career. He credits his influences in writing as the existential writers Camus, Sartre, Richard Wright, the romanticist writing of Mary Shelley, Frankenstein's author, and his most influential, Ralph Ellison of Invisible Man. He is also a fan of classic rock and the British Invasion of the 60's. He also teaches film appreciation and lists his favorite films as The Matrix, The Shining, Pink Floyd's The Wall. His novel, The Blue Mexican, contains many hidden and not so hidden references to these artists of literature, film, and music.