Chip St. Clair

With his beginnings shrouded in mystery, Chip St. Clair believed he was the only son of David St. Clair, a troubled Vietnam war veteran with a propensity toward violence, and Leslie Weaver, a mild-mannered wife and mother who was imminently preoccupied with soothing her husband's explosive rage. As a young boy, Chip found solitude in poetry and literature - Dickens, Dumas, Twain, Harper Lee, and Tolkien offered brief respite into a world more beautiful than his own. As a teenager, a darkness began to consume him, forcing Chip into a grim solitude; a weary, bleak existence reflected in his macabre etchings, poetry, and oil paintings. It wouldn't be until he crossed paths with sixteen-year-old Lisa Muethel that his life would take a dramatic twist. Her unwavering love for him pulled Chip from the brink of darkness, and provided the foundation of strength Chip would rely upon when he uncovered the brutal truth about his father - David St. Clair was not a traumatized war veteran at all, but Michael Grant, a fugitive child murderer, one of America's most wanted, on the run for nearly three decades. After turning his own father in, Chip then began to embark on a journey that took him beyond the boundaries of impossibilities, to the very precipice of hope, love, and self-discovery.

His compelling story is chronicled in his memoir The Butterfly Garden (HCI, 2008). Universities, high schools, and juvenile detention facilities all across the country have incorporated his memoir into their curriculum, and St. Clair's expertise in advocacy and identity theft, as well as his riveting lectures have become an integral part of the training for law enforcement, prosecutors, and DHS is several states.

In 2007, Chip and Lisa founded the St. Clair Butterfly Foundation, a non-profit that helps children heal through traumatic experiences using therapeutic programs based in the creative arts. St. Clair's mission is to eradicate the notion that children of sordid backgrounds are defined by their surroundings and destined to continue a cycle of suffering.

Today, Chip continues to expand his foundation, to lecture, and is working on several new fiction book projects, where he looks to offer readers of all ages the same inspiration and enjoyment he found in books as a child.