Douglas H. Young

Douglas H. Young

Welcome to Douglas Young's website. An attempt will be made to shape a brief biography and to answer questions that have been directed to him over the years from a variety of sources about his background, writing and other matters.

Doug Young, a Canadian, has always been interested in writing, especially fiction. He also developed a keen interest in international law and the operations of global corporations.

While at the University of Toronto, he submitted short stories and essays to various publications in Canada/U.S., and was a finalist in the E. J. Pratt prize for poetry at the university. After graduating from Osgoode Hall School of Law in Toronto (1962), he went on to take a Master of Laws degree in International and Comparative Law at New York University 1963.

During the '60s, he was offered jobs at the World Bank, United Nations and Canadian Foreign Service, but instead struggled with a novel and worked for the Law and Secretary's Departments of Celanese and Exxon (now ExxonMobil) Corporations in Manhattan.

The Counterculture Movement was in full swing during those years, and political and protest issues, on which he took positions or action, ranged over many centers of conflict, especially in New York City and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

As administrative assistant, for a year and half, to the Secretary of the largest oil company in Latin America, Exxon's subsidiary, Creole Petroleum in Venezuela (1967-69), he had a bird's-eye view of gun battles raging between government troops and student activists at the university nearby his apartment. He also had the experience of being assigned for several weeks to oilrigs working the large Lake Maracaibo area of the state to get a firsthand look at the basic operations of oil exploration and production. While in Venezuela, during his late twenties, he completed his first novel (turned down), then went on to Harvard Law School for a second Master of Laws degree in International Trade and Investment Law (1970).

Beginning in 1971, he was an Assistant Professor in the Law Department and Graduate School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.

While in his thirties, he left academe to continue writing fiction, and finally ended up in Florida, where he undertook a smattering of enterprises: running a motel, being part owner of a small restaurant, taking courses toward a degree in Special Education, and doing law work in areas concerning the environment (Barrier Islands) and human rights. As to rights issues, he became deeply involved in the widely publicized '80s Bruce Curtis case, concerning the young Canadian teenager, with outstanding credentials, who was arrested in New Jersey and given the maximum sentence of twenty years for aggravated manslaughter on trumped up charges pertaining to two killings. After years, he was finally freed due to the efforts of the Canadian government, Amnesty International, the Governor of New Jersey and many others sympathetic to his cause. Subsequently, Bruce went on to attend Queens University in Canada.

Regarding publication of fiction (see novels page), he feels it preferable to maintain a healthy balance between monolithic enterprises that can, through control and ownership, turn your efforts into something you don't feel comfortable with, and the less secure, and perhaps not so remunerative, avenue of personal independence. On this basis, he and several others formed Writer's Publishing House in the early '80s to publish and distribute their own work, and that of a few others, through bookstores and libraries in Florida and elsewhere.

Such a strategy of particularity, however, resulted in quite limited runs of hardback and paperback editions. Nevertheless, he has accomplished one important objective: to have his books taken into excellent university and public libraries throughout the United States and Canada.

Some of his nonfiction writing on International matters may be found in the United Nations Dag Hammarskjold and the Harvard Law School Libraries. He was also a contributor to a 1986 book published by the MIT Press - How Peace Came to the World, 2010 - in which he suggested, among other things, how different international tribunals and organizations could be established to promote human rights and disarmament.

Doug is included in the 2000 - 2001 Millennium Edition of The Marquis Who's Who in the South and Southwest United States, a companion volume to Who's Who In America, which can provide additional biographical data if desired.

He and his wife, Barbara, who was born in Hawaii, live part time in south Florida and Canada. As his partner, Chief of Staff and jack-of-all-trades, she has been of invaluable help as he plunges ahead or behind in his many endeavors.

His daughter, Jean Danielle, holding a Masters Degree in Art History, presently has certain curator responsibilities for, and is talent coordinator and budget director of, the Museum of Fine Arts at Florida State University in Tallahassee. She has recently completed a valuable work on the Group of Seven, an association of Canadian landscape artists who were largely responsible, through their paintings, for portraying Canada geographically and giving the then young country sense of its national identity.

Presently Doug is at work on another novel, and continues to pursue his interest regarding human rights and environmental issues through appropriate law and other forums.