Bio

"The Written Word is my Vocation and my Passion."

Donna Russo Morin was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1958. Her writing endeavors began in sixth grade and covered such timely topics as The Pink Pussy Cat who wanted to be President and the undying love of the numbers 2 and 4 and how they dealt with the intrusive number 3.

Traveling through adolescence on the wings of the '60s gave Donna a lot of grist for her writing mill. Feminism, civil rights, the Vietnam War were all a disturbing yet highly motivating muse and she became a voice for her contemporaries, even if only for those of her small New England town. But it was fiction that captured Donna's attention and with the appearance of a new horror writer on the book scene, a little known author named Stephen King, she became enraptured with the gruesome and the grotesque.

After graduating from college, Donna worked in marketing and advertising for large corporations and small non-profits, until she had her children. Giving birth to and caring for new lives changed Donna in a way nothing else ever had. She not only felt she could do anything but that she should. She needed to live her life trying to make her dreams a reality; to show her children, by example, that if you believe in yourself anything is possible.

Snatching moments between office jobs and raising and caring for her children, Donna's writing career progressed slowly. Her book reviews began to appear in newspapers and magazines nationwide and some of her short fiction found publication in anthologies. She wrote her first novel, a medieval fantasy adventure, and began the struggle to find a publisher. Then tragedy struck.

In the summer of 2002, Donna suffered from what she thought was the flue. As a working mother, she continued her daily routine, dismissing the illness as 'just one of those things.' After weeks of sickness, the initial symptoms subsided but she never fully recovered. She was plagued by joint pain and stiffness and was beleaguered by bouts of debilitating fatigue. She strained to make it through the days and any time left for writing was lost to her physical incapacity.

For more than two years, different doctors postulated different diagnoses and treatments, but they were all ineffective. It wasn't until December of 2004 that the answer was found. Donna suffered from severe Lyme Disease.

Within a month of the diagnosis, Donna's father passed away from cancer.

In these dark days, through the moments of despair, Donna found renewed determination. Over the course of the next year and a half, as she struggled through the intense medical treatments, Donna wrote her second novel. That work would become THE COURTIER'S SECRET.

Donna is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island. In addition to writing, editing and teaching, Donna dabbles as a model and actor, using yet another imaginary world to help support her real one. She still lives in Rhode Island, close to the beautiful shoreline. Her two sons, Devon and Dylan, are her greatest works in progress.