David Healey author

‘Writing is a marathon’: Chesapeake City author publishes 32nd book

Link to the original Cecil Whig/Cecil Daily article

Aug 14, 2026

By Carl Hamilton cahamilton@chespub.com

CHESAPEAKE CITY — Learning about polygons, perpendicular angles, the Pythagorean Theorem and such did not hold David Healey’s interest during his high school days in the mid-1980s.

“I would sit in the back of geometry class and write stories,” said the 59-year-old Chesapeake City resident, who quickly and matter-of-factly self-critiqued, “They weren’t any good. I can’t even remember them.”

His literary efforts during the past 27 years, however, have been much more memorable.

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Healey’s 32nd book, “The Guns of Liberty,” was published and released this summer. It is a Revolutionary War novel that interjects fictional characters into actual events in history, as do many of his other thrillers.

The hard-covered version of “The Guns of Liberty” was released on the Fourth of July, perfectly timed with this nation celebrating its 250th birthday, and paperbacks soon followed.

“This was a story that I felt needed to be told in honor of the 250th, considering that many of the events in the novel took place just a stone’s throw from my home. The Philadelphia Campaign actually started in Cecil County, when about 15,000 British and Hessian troops arrived on the Elk River and started marching north,” Healey explained, noting that Cooch’s Bridge in Delaware is among the book’s nearby battle scenes.

The book’s hero is Continental soldier Caleb Cole, whose lineage and lateral family ties can be traced through other historical novels penned by Healey. Characters with names like Lucas Cole, Cage Cole and Deacon Cole are the protagonists in some of Healey’s previously published books.

Healey’s body of work includes a seven-book series about a sniper in the European theater during World War II, a six-book sniper series set in the Pacific theater during WWII and a three-book sniper series set during the Korean War.

It’s clear from the settings of many of his books that, although he wasn’t jazzed about geometry, Healey loved his history classes.

Healey’s fiction canon also includes “Beach Bodies,” a murder mystery set in Rehoboth Beach; and “The House that Went Down with the Ship,” a different kind of edge-of-your-seat mystery. It is loosely based on the 1913 waterfront home on the south side of Chesapeake City where Healey has lived for 33 years.

In addition, Healey is credited with three non-fiction books, including “Great Storms of the Chesapeake” and “Delmarva Legends and Lore.”

NEED TO DO IT

Reflecting on why he wrote stories in the back of geometry class at Glen Elm High School in Howard County, as if he were following a customized syllabus, Healey explained it this way: “I had this need to do it.”

Healey found his passion early in life.

“I always wanted to be a writer, ever since I was in kindergarten. I enjoyed words and sharing stories,” Healey said, recalling that he loved when the teacher would read stories to the class and that he soon was inspired to tell his own tales and even write poems.

Growing up, Healey would write stories fueled by his colorful imagination whenever — and wherever — he could.

Healey was a cross-country runner on his high school track and field team. When traveling to other high schools for meets, for example, he often used his time to hone his literary skills.

“Riding the bus to meets, I would be jotting on a pad, writing stories to kill time,” Healey said.

A consistently published book author must have discipline, an attribute that Healey possesses and that he credits, in part, to working on his family’s small Howard County farm as a child and teenager. Steers, chickens, pigs, cows and other barnyard creatures rely on humans to survive.

“Every day after school, I’d feed the pigs and steers. If you didn’t feed and water the animals, they would die. There were real consequences,” Healey said.

He and his younger brothers — Tim, 56, and Mike, 52 — baled hay and performed numerous other daily farm chores, too. Healey’s father was a full-time federal government employee, so the small farm functioned as a sideline that, nevertheless, demanded much labor. Healey dedicated “The Guns of Liberty” to his late parents, David and Marianne (Fitzell) Healey.

“Growing up on a farm teaches you a work ethic,” Healey said.

Some aspects of farm work also served Healey well later in life as a writer.

“We sold sweet corn, tomatoes, cantaloupes and other produce at a roadside stand. People would stop and buy from us,” Healey said, noting that, perhaps on a subconscious level, he studied the mannerisms of those strangers. “You can learn a lot by interacting with people.”

If Healey wasn’t writing, he oftentimes was reading. Healey loved action-adventure books and one of his favorite authors was the late James Clavell.

“A lot of times, I would read books while waiting for customers to stop,” Healey said.

WRITING WHILE WORKING

Despite writing stories instead of fully engaging in classroom geometry lessons, Healey received his high school diploma during a 1985 graduation ceremony and then attended Washington College, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in English three years later.

Then, after a short stint as a reporter with the now-defunct Middletown Courier in Middletown, Del., where he started at only 20 years old, Healey was hired by the Cecil Whig in Elkton in 1988.

“The Cecil Whig was a crash course in writing,” he said. “It was great training because it was a newspaper. You had to write — whether you wanted to or not — because you had to meet deadlines. There is no writer’s block. It teaches you to write quickly and on a regular basis.”

Healey also credits the late Donald C. Herring for teaching him the finer points of writing. Herring served as Cecil Whig editor and then ombudsmen for more than 25 years, starting in the 1970s.

Before that era, Herring worked many years as the Indianapolis Star’s “rewrite man.” One his jobs was taking the raw notes of reporters during breaking stories and fashioning them into a well-written, compelling articles under intense deadline pressure.

“Don was an amazing writer and a very good teacher,” Healey said. “He’d give me my story and say, ‘Now read that part out loud.’ You would hear that it didn’t make sense and understand what was wrong. He didn’t do it to embarrass you. He wanted you to figure it out for yourself.”

Healey worked at the Cecil Whig for 21 years, starting as a beat reporter before receiving promotions to news editor, features editor and other titled positions.

All the while, despite writing, editing and meeting daily newspaper deadlines eight hours a day, Healey found time to write manuscripts at home, driven by his down-on-the-farm work ethic and the publish-or-perish mindset of a newspaperman.

Healey would seize whatever patches of free time he could find and write manuscripts while cloistered inside his attic office or his sunroom that provides an up-close view of the C&D Canal and of the spectacular bridge spanning that manmade waterway.

During one long stretch, when his two children, Mary and Aidan, were very young, Healey faithfully worked on one of his novels from midnight to 2 a.m. several days a week, somehow mustering the energy and inspiration after coming home from a night shift in the Whig newsroom. He wrote longhand on yellow legal pads in the wee hours of the morning, giving himself a much-needed break from computer screens after working his Whig shift.

Healey credits his former wife, Joanne, for giving him a great deal of support as he pursued his literary endeavors. Their two children are now adults.

His first book, “Sharpshooter,” was published in 1999 by Penguin Publishing Group headquartered in New York City. Set during the Civil War and featuring protagonist Lucas Cole — the first of many Cole characters to come — the plot hinges on Confederate plans to assassinate Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Union counters to prevent that killing.

By the time he left the Whig in 2009, Healey, remarkably, had four published books to his credit.

POINTERS IN PUBLISHING

For most people who write and shop manuscripts, rejection comes with the territory. And Healey knows that all too well.

Before he was published, Healey found a semi-retired book agent, Esther Perkins, who happened to live in Childs — north of Elkton — and, as Healey remembers it, “She was reluctant to take me on.”

He submitted his manuscripts for a couple of local mysteries to Perkins.

“She didn’t think they were big enough to be sending to a New York City publisher,” Healey said. “She was a lifelong agent and book distributor, so she gave me a lot of tips about the publishing industry and what it was all about. I learned a lot from her.”

Healey later contacted a NYC book agent named Jeff Gerecke and sent him his manuscript titled “Chop Shop,” a murder mystery set in an oceanside resort town. The book agent wasn’t impressed, but he still took the time to give Healey a critique, some instruction and some encouragement.

“He said, ‘Send me your next book’,” Healey remembered.

So Healey later sent Gerecke a manuscript for “Sharpshooter.” Yet again, Healey received some constructive criticism from the book agent. And as he also had done before, Healey persevered by making some suggested adjustments.

“He told me, ‘You have two books going on at the same time. You have a literary novel about the Civil War and you have a historical thriller. You can’t do both. You will have to decide’,” Healey recalled.

So back to keyboard Healey went and, choosing to be the author of an historical thriller, he made the necessary revisions and resubmitted the manuscript to Gerecke.

And with “Sharpshooter,” Healey finally was a published book author.

As as testament to his capacity to apply lessons learned, Healey revised “Chop Shop,” the murder mystery manuscript that had been rejected by Gerecke. And he published the book under a new title, “Beach Bodies,” in 2014. It is the murder mystery set in Rehoboth Beach, and it is a pager-turner.

PROLIFIC PUBLISHING

Starting with his second historical thriller, “Rebel Fever,” which was released in 2003, Healey has served as his own publisher for his fiction books. Publishing companies have handled all of his non-fiction literary works.

Another one of his books, “Rebel Train,” published in 2005 and also set during the Civil War, was referenced on a national television game show several years ago.

“It was a ‘Jeopardy’ question,” Healey said, chuckling, explaining that he learned this fact when his brother Mike excitedly texted him a photo of the answer card, “REBEL TRAIN BY DAVID HEALEY” as it appeared on his TV screen.

With 32 published books on his resume and apparently more on the way — he writes on a daily basis and is always working on literary projects — Healey is a gainfully employed author.

“Writing is not a sprint. Writing is a marathon,” Healey said.

Similar to Don Herring, his mentor years ago, Healey loves to teach students how to write well. On a part-time basis, Healey taught English at what is now Cecil College from 2000 to 2012. In addition, Healey has been teaching college writing classes online to Purdue University Global for 16 years.

Healey likes to keep a low profile, despite the fact that his writing has produced a long list of published books that bear his first and last names — all in standout font capital letters — on the covers, the spines and at the top of every other page of text.

The low-key writer has received numerous printed accolades from reviewers and other authors over the past 27 years.

On the back cover of “The Guns of Liberty,” for example, fellow author Bruce E. Mowday wrote, “David Healey has skillfully captured the essence of the drama surrounding the Battle of Brandywine and the Philadelphia campaign in 1777.”

MAKING THE GRADE

Healey barely listened to his high school geometry teacher’s lessons — because he was too busy writing stories silently in the back of the classroom. He still did the homework assignments and took the quizzes and exams, however.

“I got a ‘C’ in geometry,” Healey said. “I never told the teacher that I was writing stories in class.”

Local author David Healey shares stories from the Revolutionary War era that he “rediscovered” while researching his forthcoming novel “The Guns of Liberty” that begins with the landing of 15,000 British and Hessian troops just miles from this library branch, setting in motion the fight at Cooch’s Bridge, the Battle of the Brandywine, Valley Forge, and the occupation of Philadelphia.

Tuesday, March 24, 1 pm • Chesapeake City, MD Branch Library • 2527 Augustine Herman Highway, Chesapeake City, MD 21915

This is a MD 250 program.

‘Tis the season for book signings because we all know that books make some of the best gifts. Plus, it’s just nice to get out from behind the keyboard and see actual people.

Cecil County Public Library, Elkton Branch, Book Lovers Market November 9, 10-1. Many local authors will be there to sign books and chat. For me, it’s kind of like a class reunion! 

Speaker at Manor Mill Writers Retreat on Saturday, November 16. Monkton, MD. My topic will be, “Weaving Dusty Facts into Great Fiction”  https://manor-mill.com/writersretreat

Book signing at The Old Gray Mare, Chesapeake City, MD. I’ll be on the front porch 4-6 pm, Saturday, December 14, leading up to the Holiday Candlelight Tour of Canal Town. With luck, there will be copies available of my newest book, RIGHTEOUS SNIPER, which releases December 3.