WDA member Dr. David F. Gundersen is a 2011 graduate of Marquette and a partner with First Choice Dental in Madison. He is also a children’s book author. Under the pen name Davie Fletcher, Dr. Gundersen has taken two dental icons – the dental treasure chest and the tooth fairy – and created “kind-of-true” tales that shake up what we thought we knew about both.
Being a dentist and an author is a continuation of a career promoting youth health and education. Prior to becoming a dentist, Dr. Gundersen taught middle school science and health in Compton, CA. He then returne
d to Wisconsin, first as Director of School Health Programs for the State of Wisconsin, and then as Executive Director of the Wisconsin Tobacco Control Board.
But dentistry kept calling him. “As a health teacher in an inner-city school, I had kids coming to me all the time saying ‘Mr. Gundersen, my teeth hurt.’ They’d pull back their lips and they had teeth rotting in their mouths. Kids can’t learn if they’re in pain. It was tragic,” Gundersen recalls. “When I cam
e back to Wisconsin and saw the same thing happening here, I decided I wanted to do something about it.” At the age of 39, he went back to dental school.
And just like dentistry called, so did his books. “Blacktooth and Dentina literally woke me up at night demanding I write them,” he continued. And Dr. Gundersen offered a challenge. “Tell your story. If you don’t answer the call, your pirates and tooth fairies will never come to life – and might even haunt you.”
Blacktooth and Dentina, by Davie Fletcher and Suzanne Beaky, are available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble in hard cover and ebook. You can also follow Blacktooth and Dentina on Facebook by searching BlacktoothTheBook and DentinaTheBook.