Richard de Grasse

Richard de Grasse, winner of the prestigious annual Key West Writers Guild Award for his short story "The Old Man In The Stream" and, more recently, for his novel "Mission to Haiti", he lives with his wife Kathleen in Islesboro, Maine, and aboard their sloop "Endeavour" in Boot Key Harbor, Marathon, Florida. He has published a number of non-fiction short stories. In "Mission to Haiti", his latest novel, a missionary sister hires an unemployed Key West captain to deliver a load of children's supplies on a wooden schooner to an orphanage on the small island Ile a Viche on the south coast of Haiti. As they deal with romance on a small boat, they have many adventures including pirates, Haitian Voodoo Haitian bureaucrats, all of which become fodder for FOX NEWS. "Eagle Haven" is his second novel developed around island people and sailors they know. "Road To Havana" his first full-length novel. They own a sailboat very much like "Siren Song" depicted in the novel and have visited Cuba several times. Like "Eagle Haven", many of the characters and scenes in "Road To Havana" were developed around people they know and actual experiences they've had in the Caribbean and on both sides of the Florida Straits. In keeping with his belief that good fiction is writing about what you know, his latest novel "Eagle Haven" is about a Maine Island that is assaulted by a fast-buck developer from away. Since Dick is a U.S. Coast Guard licensed captain, much of his writing includes adventures at sea.