Captivating Stories from a Renegade Reporter

A Journalist's Journey

David Haldane has enjoyed a career in journalism spanning more than four decades, beginning as an underground reporter for the Berkeley BARB and culminating in twenty-three years as a Los Angeles Times staff writer. Currently he divides his time between homes in Joshua Tree, California, and Northern Mindanao, Philippines, where he writes a weekly newspaper column chronicling expat life. In addition to helping his Filipino wife raise their two children, David dabbles in broadcasting, winning a 2018 Golden Mike award for his work as a reporter and weekend news anchor at Joshua Tree’s radio station, KCDZ Z107.7 FM.

A Passion for Purpose

David enjoys the creative process and the satisfaction of sharing stories. His goal is to reach people whose experience in some way transects his own. It is through this connection that he hopes to achieve the full potential of a life well lived as a saga well told.

Evolving as a Writer

From news articles and features, Haldane has gradually evolved toward longer forms. His earliest steps in that direction can be seen in a first person memoir of Berkeley days written nearly 20 years ago. Nazis and Nudists published in 2015 is more expansive and mature, told from the perspective of the ensuing years. And in 2021 he took his first dive into fiction with the publication of a short-story collection called Jenny on the Street. David’s most recent book, A Tooth in My Popsicle, is an exposition of his life as an American expat in the Philippines. For a deeper understanding of David's personal and social concerns, watch his interviews on KCET and LA18, both regarding subjects addressed in his writing.

About Nazis & Nudists

Like many baby boomers, David Haldane got swept into the turbulence of the late 60s and early 70s, both as a radical activist and “underground” journalist. . Eventually, after self-imposed exiles in Europe and Mexico, he married, started a family, and graduated to the Los Angeles Times where he chronicled the events of an era. But Haldane always longed for more, a "green leafy space" in which to feel at peace. Finally, after a painful divorce, he found it in the arms of a dark-haired woman from the exotic isles of the Philippines.  Nazis & Nudists tells that poignant story of love lost, and love found. More importantly, it recounts the lifelong spiritual quest for a place to call home. A finalist in the 2016 Maxy Awards and in two categories of the 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, Nazis & Nudists is available in several formats at Black Rose Writing, Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

 

About Jenny on the Street

A desperate young woman lost on the drug-infested streets of London, an insane revolutionary holding the devil in a jar, an indifferent truck driver forced to run over cats and a reverent grandmother looking for God in a rock. All of them are among the unforgettable characters inhabiting these thirteen short stories set amidst magic, majesty, mystery and mayhem. It was a surreal era of extreme idealism, exaggerated exuberance, ferocious fearlessness, and foolish folly. A period in which the scent of change permeated every tree, town, and tent. A time, in other words, much like our own. Order it now at Black Rose Writing, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble.

 

About A Tooth in My Popsicle

What started as a story of desperation turned into a beautiful transformation. Award-winning journalist David Haldane walked into the newsroom of his long-time employer, the Los Angeles Times, one day to get unceremoniously escorted right back out in a massive layoff. What followed was a long saga that landed him in a place he never imagined: the magical Philippine island of Siargao, in Northern Mindanao, that had served as the cradle for his Filipino bride. A Tooth in My Popsicle is a compilation of short narrative essays, first published as columns in the region’s leading newspaper, recounting the surprising, spiritual, often hilarious, and always entertaining experience of adapting to life in a strange new land. Described as “a highly satisfying and sometimes frightening true life adventure,” the book is required reading for anyone contemplating such a move, or Filipinos wondering what would inspire a foreigner’s abiding devotion to their homeland. Order it at Black Rose Writing, Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Lazada.