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Tim Stickel

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I am a native of Washington state and still live in the Seattle area. I have been an avid student of all areas of history for as long as I can remember. So naturally, I studied it at the University of Washington and received a BA in History in 1973, concentrating on Far Eastern History. Unfortunately, the world was not breaking down doors to hire historians in Seattle in 1973 and a local billboard read: "Will the last person leaving Seattle turn out the lights". After a short stint in VISTA (the domestic version of the Peace Corps), and newly married with a family, I made a "temporary" detour into the aerospace industry.

Forty-plus years later I returned to my first love of history. I have been particularly drawn to the region of Manchuria, or as Owen Lattimore aptly named it, the "Cradle of Conflict". In the Twentieth Century, it was fought over by the Russians, Chinese, Japanese, and Western powers. The city of Harbin was a microcosm of that struggle where White Russian refugees vied with rising Chinese nationalism for control. Reading their stories of survival from those tumultuous and divisive times helped me to put our own current state of affairs into perspective.

Along the way, I discovered that writing historical fiction was a way of sharing my own love of history with others. The story-telling allows one to be immersed in the past in ways that ordinary non-fiction history cannot. So naturally, my first book is a murder mystery that takes place in that crossroad city of Harbin in 1929 and is part of an upcoming series. Because the historical aspect of my storytelling is important to me, I strive to be as accurate to the real past as possible. That includes research of available academic books and articles on Manchuria and Harbin, and even acquiring travel guides, magazines, and maps from the time period.