My Newsletter

Hello, everyone. My name is Donnie Stevens, and welcome to my first author newsletter. First, I would like to tell you a little about myself, but only the good stuff. LOL. I was born and raised in Bassett, Virginia, or the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. As I like to boast, sounds better, doesn’t it? Most of my younger years were spent on a small country farm with the greatest mother a son could have and loving grandparents who taught me more lessons about life than I ever learned in school. Or maybe I just never paid attention. On that farm at four or five years old, with no inkling it happened till decades later, my grandfather inspired me to write. Every evening after tending gardens, milking the cow, slopping hogs, feeding chickens, and stacking more firewood for the kitchen woodstove—okay, you get the picture. My grandfather would gather me and my siblings around to read a story from his monthly Reader’s Digest or LIFE® Magazine, mesmerizing us with stories—some fiction, many real-life. My grandfather’s love for reading planted the seed in me to want to write a story someday. I ignored it most of my life, even with the urge to write that first book, until January 1, 2008.

I still remember it vividly. Sitting with my pretty wife, Jackie, over our New Year’s breakfast, she asked me what New Year’s resolutions I made. “I’m going to write my first book.” She laughed, I laughed, and four months later, I handed her my first handwritten draft of Old Man Missing, a family drama mystery that takes place in Floyd County, Virginia, a beautiful part of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her first comment after sitting up till 1:00 a.m. to finish reading the story—“You don’t write like you talk.” We both thanked God, and with pen in hand—or keyboard in front of me, to be honest—my journey and dream of becoming a published author began.

To date, I have published three novels, Old Man Missing, Inn In Abingdon, and The Lost Letter, with the latter two available on Amazon, our local Hallmark, and Main Street Art Collective stores in Danville, Virginia. I currently have four manuscripts placed with an award-winning agent, who not only challenges me to be better at my craft but has shared so much insight and guidance into what it takes to be a successful author. And I must call out my editors and critique partners. They painstakingly edit my work to make it the best read possible. Thank You! I’ve learned so much from them.