SBW Speaker Series -- Donna Rowell

Saratoga Senior Center – 19655 Allendale Ave, Saratoga 95070
Member $10, Nonmember $15 (coffee and snacks provided)

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.
As a child, she was deeply influenced by her grandfather, C. E. Rowell, a recognized tribal elder, artist, and master storyteller. He was one of the last readers of the Sai-guats, deerskin winter count calendars that chronicled a century of Kiowa history. His stories, memories, and art instilled in her a deep respect for Kiowa culture and traditions.
Donna was seven years old when her family moved to San Jose, where her father sought greater opportunities to support the family. She continued to visit her extended family in Oklahoma. At age twelve, her grandfather pointed at her with his chin, in the style of the old ones, and said, “You. You will keep these stories alive. You are next.” She has never forgotten that moment or responsibility.
After graduating from Silver Creek High School, Donna attended De Anza and West Valley colleges and became the first in her family to earn a bachelor’s degree. She studied communication and media at San Jose State University and later headed her own production company, Better Image Productions, Inc., providing video production and marketing for Silicon Valley startups. She also worked in marketing and media for larger companies including Macromedia, Sun Microsystems and Cypress Semiconductor.
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.
Join us Saturday, Nov. 8, for an inspiring presentation on “Native American Traditions: Influence on Novel Writing” with D. M. Rowell at 10:30 a.m. at the Saratoga Senior Center, 19655 Allendale Ave.