Oldest Trick in the Book: A Ruinous Romance in Two Acts (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781517291334)

David W. Christner was born in Sweetwater, TN and raised in a small farming community situated between the Washita River and the Wichita Mountains in southwestern Oklahoma; in his youth he attended church, picked cotton, plowed fields, harvested wheat, hauled hay and moved irrigation pipe. After a stint with the U.S. Navy in Vietnam and Norfolk, VA, he settled permanently in South County, RI, just across the bay from Newport where he had attended Officer Candidate School five years earlier. His stage plays The Wall, Bui-Doi: The Dust of Life, The Walk, Red Hot Mamas, The Babe, The Bard and the Baron, The Bitch of Baily's Beach, Ezra and Evil, What About Mimi?, and This Blood's For You have been finalists or winners in national/international playwriting competitions. Speculations on the cosmos, sex, war, religion, injustice, environmental exploitation, aging, women's issues, the homeless and capital punishment have formed the thematic content of the plays and novels he has written so far. In addition to the U.S., his plays have been produced in Australia, Japan, Belgium, India and Canada. "Red Hot Mamas" was recently translated into Russian and Italian for productions in those countries. Christner is theater critic for the Newport Mercury in Newport, RI.