ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bio | Interview | Photos

Mike Wiecek grew up in central Missouri. At eighteen it was time for one coast or the other, and he took a math degree at Brown University. Senior-year job interviews did not go well, so Mike decided to go abroad instead. Half of the next ten years he spent in Asia, mostly in Japan. He started by teaching English, and later worked as a salaryman and the only westerner in the Tokyo publishing house Fusosha. In the course of several long trips he has hitchhiked through northeast Asia, taken a freighter to Bora Bora, overlanded to Tibet, backpacked across Tasmania, and climbed Mt. Kinabalu on Borneo.

In between travels Mike worked the usual motley of novelist-in-waiting jobs: telemarketer, ambulance medic, construction laborer, a stint at Boston’s transit authority. At thirty-two, however, he finally settled down in Boston, spending four years as the financial director of a small high-tech company. He took a year off to get an M.S. from MIT’s Sloan School, afterward joining Fidelity Investments as VP of internet business development.

Mike’s wife is a management consultant in Boston. Soon after their first child was born, Mike decided to abandon paid employment for the lazy, carefree life of a stay-at-home dad. His daughter is now seven years old, and has been joined by a brother, age three.

Mike sold his first story in 2000; it was subsequently anthologized, and won a Derringer Award in 2001. His second story was nominated for a Shamus Award by the Private Eye Writers of America. He went on to publish numerous other stories, and received a 2006 Shamus for “A Death in Ueno.” His first novel EXIT STRATEGY (Penguin/Jove, 2005) was shortlisted for 2006 Best Paperback by the International Thriller Writers.

Mike is a long-time volunteer at the local food co-op. He is also on the board of his son’s co-op preschool. He learned how to juggle 25 years ago and hopes to teach his children; as his grandmother told him, once you have a skill, you can always earn a living.
 

An interview with Mike is here.