Bios
Eleanor Donlon
Born into the tri-partite heritage of Roman Catholicism, homeschooling, and the United States Navy, Eleanor Bourg Donlon is the third of six children and the only daughter. The Navy brought ample opportunities to travel; the Donlon children traveled north, south, east, and west across the continental United States at regular intervals, and even ventured to Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, Okinawa and Korea at early ages. Later travels brought Eleanor to England and Ireland, the former bringing her into intimate contact with London, the land of literary dreams.
From an early age Eleanor was nurtured with the classics—from Miss Austen she garnered wit, from the Brontës she learned romance, Wodehouse inspired her sense of humor, Shakespeare refined her sensibilities, Huysmans introduced melodrama, Dostoyevsky brought soul-thundering pathos, and Dickens made conquest of her narrative voice. Alongside these monumental teachers, many other influences were at play—minor according the organization of the literary canon, but major in their contribution to the development of a young writer. The golden era of mystery fiction was particularly well-represented and between Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, Eleanor’s sense of formulaic charm developed.
A graduate of the University of Virginia, Eleanor received her Master's degree in English literature in January of 2007, specializing in British Victorianism and with an emphasis upon religious issues of the period, particularly anti-Catholicism. In defiance of all predictions from pragmatic onlookers, this academic training has served her in good stead. She now works as a freelance writer and editor based out of Charlottesville, Virginia. She concentrates in particular on her responsibilities as an assistant editor at Dappled Things and the Saint Austin Review (StAR). |
