To celebrate Native American Heritage Month, we welcome Donna (D. M.) Rowell as our November speaker. She will share storytelling traditions she learned from her grandfather and describe how she has applied them to her crime fiction novels.
Donna comes from a long line of Kiowa storytellers within a culture that treasures oral traditions. She is an enrolled citizen of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma and has spent decades preserving sacred stories shared by tribal elders.
At the end of a three-decade high-tech career, culminating as a digital media director, Donna took on the pen name D. M. Rowell, and began a new chapter as a novelist. She is writing a mystery series featuring a Silicon Valley professional Kiowa woman and her Plains Indian tribe. The first book, “Never Name the Dead,” was published in 2022 and nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award. She is now working on the fourth book in the series.
Donna is also an award-winning producer and scriptwriter of several documentaries, including “Vanishing Link: My Spiritual Return to the Kiowa Way.” The film, which aired on PBS, won TrailDance 2007 Best Oklahoma Documentary.
Where: Saratoga Senior Center – 19655 Allendale Ave, Saratoga 95070
When: Saturday, Nov 08, 10:30 am
Admission: Member $10, Nonmember $15 (coffee and snacks provided)