About Me & Interviews

Bios:

Donna Janell Bowman is the author of many books for young readers, including Wings of an Eagle: The Gold Medal Dreams of Billy Mills, a collaboration with Olympian Billy Mills (Oglala Lakota). Other titles include Step Right Up: How Doc and Jim Key Taught the World About Kindness; Abraham Lincoln’s Dueling Words; King of the Tightrope: When the Great Blondin Ruled Niagara; and others. Donna’s books have garnered such accolades as starred reviews, state book awards, a Robert F. Sibert Award Honor from American Library Association (ALA), and additional awards and honors from the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), and Texas Library Association (TLA). Her books have also been named to Best-of-the-Year lists, recommended by Oprah Daily and other publications, and featured at the National Book Festival as a Library of Congress Great Read. Armed with an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts, she writes and edits from her Central Texas home, and she enjoys speaking at schools around the country.

Shorter bio:

Donna Janell Bowman is the author of many books for young readers, including Wings of an Eagle: The Gold Medal Dreams of Billy Mills, a collaboration with Olympian Billy Mills (Oglala Lakota); Step Right Up: How Doc and Jim Key Taught the World About Kindness; Abraham Lincoln’s Dueling Words; King of the Tightrope: When the Great Blondin Ruled Niagara; and others. Donna’s books have garnered such accolades as starred reviews, state book awards, and numerous awards and honors from mighty organizations commonly known by their acronyms: ALA, NCSS, NCTE, TLA, plus an Oprah Daily recommendation, Library of Congress Great Reads selection, Best-Of-The-Year lists, and more. Armed with an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts, she writes and edits from her Central Texas home, and she enjoys speaking at schools around the country.

Snarky bio:

Donna Janell Bowman is a Central Texas author. Please don’t hold that against her. Long ago, she was a horse-crazy kid on a ranch. At that time, her job was to scoop poop, fill food and water buckets, train for horse shows, sneak stray animals into the barn, annoy her brother, and check out as many books as possible from the bookmobile. You see, she was a multi-tasker. Then she grew up. It doesn’t matter how. She simply did. Today, her books have earned awards and accolades, many from organizations with names that are more easily remembered by their acronyms and their brilliant literacy champions. She has an MFA diploma hanging on her wall and the related student loan hanging over her head. When not writing or editing, she can usually be found in her happy place — speaking at schools around the country.

Donna’s favorites (In no particular order after the first fave)
Her two grown sons
Books that maker her laugh, cry, or think
Animals & nature
Hiking
Outdoor activities like paddleboarding, camping, swimming, zip-lining, kayaking
Chocolate
Kind people
A great chicken or salmon dinner (Or a stupendous entree salad)
Cooking
Travel
Beautiful colors, like purple, turquoise, blues, peach
The sound of laughter
The smell of rain or freshly-baked cookies
Time with friends and family
Yoga
A completed first draft of a new book
Research

More about Donna

As a ranch kid, wide-open spaces provided an incubator for a vivid imagination and a fascination with words. Stories, poems, questions, and plays spilled from Donna’s #2 pencil while she sat in a tree, or from a manual typewriter in her pink and purple bedroom (to the annoyance of her brother next door).

Even at six years old, after a bicycle accident left her with a broken jaw, missing teeth, and her mouth wired shut for weeks, Donna was certain she would grow up to be a veterinarian, movie star, writer, and princess—all at the same time. She did not write herself into the corporate family business as an adult, but there she landed until she could no longer ignore her inner storyteller. She started writing for newspapers and magazines, and then she launched into a years-long self-study of writing craft that later inspired her to pursue an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She considers herself a puzzler of plots, a virtuoso of voice, and a sucker for stories that pierce her heart, wallop her funny bone, or rattle her thinking.

She now spends her time as a writer, editor, writing teacher, and a speaker at schools and conferences. She still lives in central Texas, not far from the wide-open spaces of her childhood, but not close enough to her two favorite (and only) grown sons.

Random ramblings from a ranch kid

Donna was allergic to horses. Yes, seriously! Yet she spent hours every day training for competitive western and English riding events.
The childhood horse Donna was most bonded with was Dee Dee. Read about how Dee Dee inspired her to write Step Right Up.
When she made a pet out of a calf, gave it the name Cola, and loved it like a dog, her parents eventually stopped referring to it as hamburger or T-bone.
The only time her father took her on a hunting trip, Donna brought home a baby goat instead. He grew up to be a big-horned billy goat named Billy the Kid—a rascal of a soda thief!
When her parents brought home a chick that someone in town abandoned after Easter, Donna taught him to sleep on the family collie and to follow her around the house.
Lots of newborn and sick animals (including foals) were nursed to health in the house.
When a guinea hen abandoned her eggs, the eggs were placed under a sitting duck that later taught the guinea babies to swim. Sort of!
On Donna’s birthday, her new gerbils got loose in the station wagon and were impossible to find.
Donna had a pet skunk named Stinky who lived in the house until he chewed all the electrical cords.
Donna and her family took her cat, Chester, camping in the Colorado mountains. And let him out of the RV to explore. He returned to the RV in the nick of time.
Donna spent her 16^th birthday competing at a long, cold, rainy horse show. Yay, sweet 16!
As a child, Donna’s favorite place to write stories was in a tree.