Biography
Who is this guy?
Born at Christ Hospital in Jersey City New Jersey, David Ortmann began writing in a grey, square 3 inch by 3 inch appointment diary he bought at his fifth grade Christmas bazaar and he hasn't stopped writing since. There were only five tiny lines for each date in that first grey book. His father bought him a larger red diary the following Christmas and that tradition continued for many years.
He wrote his first novel Capsized Identity, based on the Bette Davis film A Stolen Life when he was eleven years old. Original story ideas and the knowledge of copyright laws, clearly, were not in place at the time. He developed a screenplay in his mind, with himself in the dual roles of the rivaling sisters, one good, and the other evil. What David didn't know was at about the same time, over the river in Manhattan, playwright Charles Busch and his misfit theater troupe were doing much the same in Greenwich Village's Limbo Lounge: producing plays based on the premise of old Hollywood films, with the strong leading lady-often a Davis, Crawford, or Stanwyck role-portrayed by a man (often Busch himself). It was genius and, had the eleven-year-old boy known about it, he just might have hit the village and started his theater career ten years earlier.
If you want a taste of his daily life during the Junior and Senior High School years buy Kevin Jennings' anthology Telling Tales Out of School (www.amazon.com). David's piece is titled "Hearing Voices." You can also find an excerpt from the book on this site in the Anthologies section.
He studied literature, theater, and political theory for a year at Western Maryland College (now called McDaniel College) in Westminster Maryland, where he also played the lead in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, before transferring to The American University in Washington DC, where he graduated in 1992 with a degree in International Relations and Peace & Conflict Resolution Studies. Following graduation, he spent most of 1992 in the Czech Republic teaching English and Theater, during the Czecho-Slovak national split.
Back in Washington in 1993, he worked as a model and actor while teaching English and theater to children grades K through 6th in D.C. private schools. As an actor, he performed in seventeen productions in two and a half years. David helped to form the Theater Conspiracy and starred, most notably, in his one-man show Coming Out With Frenchie, which he also authored, and in the lead roles in Charles Busch's Theodora! She Bitch of Byzantium and Times Square Angel.
He moved to San Francisco in 1995 and received his Masters degree in Social Work in 1999 from San Francisco State University. He published his first poem (Got Milk), anecdotal essay (Hearing Voices), and his first research article (Mothers Behind the Walls: An International Analysis of the Effects of Imprisonment on Mothers and their Children) that same year.
David was represented by Boom Models and Talent during graduate school and paid his way through his Masters program doing print, photography modeling, twisting balloon animals at the Chevy's restaurant in Stonestown Mall, and impersonating various movie stars in San Francisco nightclubs (singing, not lip-synching).
Theatrically, he has appeared in the Half-Baked Player's San Francisco production of the cult hit The Duboce Triangle and Wilde Bunch Production's The Face, an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Portrait of Dorian Grey in which he was grateful to have played the leading role of Antonio Romero, a character based on the silent film star Ramon Novarro. His stage work as a young rough trade street hustler in George Birimisa's award winning play Georgie Porgie is featured in Birimisa's autobiographical documentary, Looking for Mr. America.
As an author, David has contributed to National Public Radio's Perspectives series, as well as the Bay Area Reporter, The Bay Times, Q San Francisco, Passport, Callboard, and The Writer magazines. His short fiction and essays have appeared in multiple anthologies. His first (second if you count Capsized Identity) novel, Under the Boardwalk, is complete (read an excerpt from it in the Novels section on this site). He is currently at work on writing several pieces of short fiction, pursuing publishing options for Under the Boardwalk, and completing his second novel, Still Life (excerpt also in the Novels section).
David lives in San Francisco, one of the most beautiful cities on earth, with his turtle Gus, a stack of Cher CDs, an eclectic library of books, and a collection of Steve Buscemi films. He operates a successful private psychotherapy and sex therapy practice in addition to his writing endeavors.
David has green eyes, loves children, animals, and sleeping.
He dislikes crowds and calamari.