I’m David Shepard, a writer, electrician and Marine Corps veteran living in Oregon. I write about the experiences that shaped me, the people who helped me through them, and the questions I’ve carried into adulthood. My current work brings me back to Alaska, where I arrived at sixteen with a strict religious upbringing and little understanding of the life I was about to enter.

In December 2007, a house fire displaced my family in California. A few months later, I was sent to stay with a missionary family in Unalakleet, a small village on Alaska’s Bering Sea coast. The trip was supposed to last one month. It became nearly two years.

My memoir in progress, Where the East Wind Blows, follows that time. Living in a combined church and house, I took on unfamiliar responsibilities and spent long stretches alone. I traveled to remote villages, learned to gather wood and fish through the ice, and found myself in situations where my inexperience carried real consequences. People in the community helped me find my footing, especially Luther, a Native Alaskan man whose patience and practical knowledge became an important part of my life there.

The book holds the danger and beauty of those years alongside the quieter experiences of being young and far from home: wanting to be useful, following the expectations of the adults around me, and trying to understand where I belonged. Writing it now means returning to those moments with both the memory of the boy who lived them and the perspective of the man I’ve become.

Over the coming year, my focus is on developing the manuscript and working toward traditional publication, while continuing to write personal essays and share shorter pieces. Hidden Survivor is where I’ll bring that work together, with links to published stories, updates on the memoir, and glimpses into the experiences behind the writing.

Thank you for reading and being part of this next chapter.