About Clark

Seattle author Clark Heideger comes to fiction after three decades as a marketing writer and editor, working in industries ranging from jewelry to software to cars. As automotive editor for Lexus Magazine he covered motorsports and professional golf, driving the Laguna Seca race track with Scott Pruett and producing a golf video with Annika Sorenstam.

Heideger earned his degree in English Literature at the University of Washington while supporting himself in automotive repair, dabbling in racing on the weekends. A passionate golfer since childhood, his accomplishments on the links are modest—a handful of club tournament wins and three holes-in-one. His self-taught swing is definitely not a beautiful thing to behold—his late grandfather would look away whenever they played.

When not on the links or at his laptop, Heideger can be found slapping pucks on the ice or drifting the Yakima River with a fly rod. “Basically, I enjoy any sport that involves waving a stick,” he says. He remains an automotive enthusiast, having owned nearly 100 vehicles in his lifetime. His current project is a rare 1925 speedster rescued from a tangle of blackberry bushes.

Wife Lisa did not know what to make of Heideger when they first met. A Mount Holyoke graduate and author of 30 romance novels, she had never encountered a man versed in Shakespeare who also played ice hockey twice a week. Nevertheless, the pair knew a good thing when they saw it: They were engaged within two weeks and married nine months later. The day after their wedding, two burly defensemen helped move Lisa’s piano into their newly purchased home. They have been married for more than 15 years.

After a lifetime of non-fiction, Winter Rules is Heideger’s first novel. Although entirely a work of fiction, the setting for Winter Rules is loosely based on Wayne Golf Course, a beginner-friendly course on the outskirts of Seattle where Heideger learned the game as a boy. Many readers will see a similarity with quirky small courses found around the country, and indeed the world.