John Straley

TBD

About the Speaker

John Straley graduated from the Browning School for Boys in New York City in 1971.  His father had grown up in Iowa and Wyoming and didn’t care to have his youngest son become a city boy.  In the summers John worked in the wilderness of north central Washington State as a wrangler and horseshoer.  He’s earned degrees in Literature from the University of Washington and worked as a mill worker, a trail crew foreman and finally as a Private Investigator in Alaska. In 1992 he published his first book The Woman Who Married a Bear which became the first in the Cecil Younger series.  He had written four books in the Cold Storage, Alaska series. He has published five books of poetry. He won the best first mystery Shamus award and the Spotted Owl award for the best northwest mystery.  In 2008 he was appointed as the writer Laureate of Alaska, and later was awarded an honorary PhD from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.  In 2017 he retired from the Alaska Public Defender Agency. 

He is married to Janice Straley who is a prominent Marine Biologist.  They are the proud parents of Finn Straley.  He and Janice lived in Sitka, Alaska from 1977 until October of 2022 when they moved to Carmel, California to be closer to Finn and his family. Though, they all remain Alaskans at heart.