Author • Photographer
While growing up in Los Angeles, California, our family of four wasn't far from a natural oasis where my love of nature thrived; Yosemite National Park. We spent vacations immersed in a haven of green valleys, thundering waterfalls, and immense trees...trees so big we drove right through them! Over the years, this supplied our creative family with endless photographing, writing, and drawing fodder.
Dad, Mom, me & my older
sister Nancy in Yosemite
My favorite playground:
Yosemite Valley
My sister and I played, er...took weekly classes, in oil painting at a Los Angeles art gallery. We drew, mixed paint, brushed paint, smeared paint, and wore a lot of paint! The freedom to have fun with craft and style cultivated a lifelong love of art.
Shortly after my 15th birthday we moved from one coast to the other; to Tucker, Georgia where relatives lived nearby in the beautiful north Georgia Mountains. It took a while to get used to the thick humidity, relentless mosquitoes, and storms knocking out power, but the changing seasons and dramatic storms that I'd seen on TV were far more exciting in person!
I painted this many moons ago -
it's one of my favorites!
Although I worked as an office manager, tested hearing and fit hearing aids, I always kept a hand in writing, illustrating, and photography. I was thrilled to handle the print advertisement for the hearing and speech center's five offices, and creating a “how to” illustrated booklet for children being fit with hearing aids.
When I became pregnant with my first child (in 1983) my dreams became focused on writing for children. I was blessed with three wonderful children and stayed home with them for several years. I wrote every chance I could, sending stories to a flood of publishers. I quickly learned it’s a tough market to break into!
Christy, Heather & Nicholas
Opportunity arose for me to work with my father's company selling children’s educational material, and performing magic shows at numerous schools, bookstores, and museums. But when my youngest child entered school, I reentered the workforce full time.
Intrigued by anatomy, I became a dental assistant for a prosthodontist, and proceeded to surgical assistant for an oral and maxilliofacial surgeon. With a strong desire to write, I created the Standard Operating Procedures for each company…and anything else I could possibly pen! I still occasionally visited schools and museums; this time with presentations on dental health.
Then my life took an unexpected, magical turn. I met the love of my life, Fire Chief Danny D. Bowman. After we married I was blessed to be able to dive full time into my lifelong passions of writing, illustrating, and photography. Between Danny and I, we have five terrific children and six energetic grandchildren. They’re as busy as squirrels and grow faster than kudzu…and unknowingly supply me with terrific anecdotes for stories!
As a writer, photographer, illustrator, and naturalist, I’m drawn to the natural wonders of our world. I’ve canoed through alligator-infested swamps, tracked 800-pound bear in the Poconos, and even ventured through a few kid's rooms (gasp!) in search of unusual sites and stories.
I became a columnist for Dawson Community News (GA) where my regular column “Tips, Trips and Titles” gave home schoolers suggestions for activities, field trips, and books. I also wrote stories and took photographs for human interest articles.
And then came…BIG CATS! After 25 long years of writing (my first baby now had her first baby!), I finally achieved my first published book! Yes--it brought tears to my eyes, and left me with a smile that I likely still wear in my sleep. I love doing in-depth research, and getting to know amazing, leading experts.
Within the span of nine incredible months I had four published books released:
I couldn't be more thrilled! And to top it all off, now I get to share knowledge of big cats, space, and dinosaurs, while engaging children in fun, literary safaris. A never ending blessing!
Heather, Christy and Nicholas are all grown up now. They, and Heather's son Hunter, are each just as wild about animals and exploration as I am. Look out world!
Heather & Christy Nicholas & Hunter
I’m also a Co-Regional Advisor for 600 writers and illustrators in the Southern Breeze Region (Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi) of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (21,000 members worldwide!), as well as Editor and Publisher of the Southern Breeze News. I help coordinate two major conferences a year. And I’ve led the critique group Book Bound Writers and Illustrators Group for over a decade.
When I’m not at home multitasking, I’m likely out exploring something new...
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Copyright 2008-2011 Donna H. Bowman. All rights reserved.
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