Douglas Armstrong was born in Kansas, where two of his novels are set. Though neither Sun Dog Memory nor Even Sunflowers Cast Shadows reflect on his life there, they both borrow heavily from past experiences of close family members. "Sun Dog" speculates on what happened to his paternal grandfather’s family when their homesteading efforts on the western plain in 1911 ran into trouble. “Sunflowers” collects quirky childhood anecdotes from his mother’s small town life in the 1920s and assembles them into a funny and poignant narrative.

For thirteen years, Armstrong was the movie critic for The Milwaukee Journal, where days of cinematic escape led him to try his hand at fiction in his spare time. His short stories appeared in pulp magazines like Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock Magazine, among others. His debut novel, Even Sunflower Cast Shadows, published in 2010 was awarded the Council for Wisconsin Writers Award as the best novel that year. In 2012, he began a series of newspaper novels about the turbulent issues of the 1960s and the effect that protests over the war, civil rights, and the treatment of women had on newspaper reporters covering those events. Life on The Sun and Color of The Sun are currently available. Eclipse of The Sun is due out in 2024

Armstrong has been a member of the Mystery Writers of America since 1995. He is active civically in his hometown of Shorewood, Wisconsin. He is married and the father of four.