David decided in junior high that the best thing he could do in life was to become as much like J.R.R. Tolkien as possible. Over the years, his interests shifted from Bilbo’s Middle-earth to Cædmon’s middangeard and Snorri’s Miðgarðr, but the love of old things and old ways has remained. David pursued that love through an M.A. in English (U of Alabama at Birmingham) and into the Ph.D. program at the U of Georgia. (His dissertation was about Beowulf, to nobody’s surprise.)
After teaching for four years at Central Christian College of Kansas (2011-2015), David moved to his current post as an Assistant Professor of English at Houston Baptist University. There he teaches a smattering of composition and literary subjects, as well as mentoring a little flock of undergraduate and graduate advisees.
David is married to Katie Norman Grubbs, who also did her Ph.D. at the U of Georgia, albeit with a focus on elegies for children in the English Renaissance. They have, at last count, four children (named alphabetically), and currently live in balmy Sugar Land, Texas. They attend Grand Parkway Baptist Church in Richmond, Texas, where both David and Katie serve as lay teachers.
When not immersed in things academic, familial, or ecclesial, David has been known to read disposable fiction from the early 20th century, watch old movies about giant monsters stomping model buildings, and play tabletop games involving graph paper and polyhedral dice.