Donna Watkins

Member of SCBWI, NEA Writers Group, and, Heartland Writers Guild. I am a retired Certified Dietary Manager (CDM),a Certified Food Protection Professional (CFPP), and Nutrition Counselor. My work in dietitics span through 20+ years. Most of that tenure was spent working in my community, with homemakers and youth, instructing and engaging them in the areas of nutrition regarding healthy food consumption,food purchasing, food preparation and storage, gardening and food preservation, and family finances. I also worked for a period of time in the dietary departments of a Rehabilitation Hospital and a Correctional Facility. I've written several books in a variety of genres, including, children's books, cookbooks, gardening books, and, some works of fiction. Currently, I'm a contributing writer for a regional magazine. Writing has always been a very rewarding hobby for me and one that I hope to be actively engaged in for years to come. The Junior Chef cookbook evolved from a simple cooking experience shared with my grand daughter as I was trying to pass along the Family's Famous Chocolate Pie Recipe. The project grew into trying out many recipes for foods that kids love and, in turn, creating our own recipes, hence, the creation of our own cookbook. The Kid's gardening book grew out of a gardening experiment involving my two grandsons and a few of the neighborhood kids. We grew vegetables in big containers as well as planting a small patch of corn and melons. It was so much fun that they also wanted to share their experiences in a book. Teaching my grand children, and others, skills that will follow into their adult lives to help them lead self-reliable, accomplished lives was my goal and is my reward. A long term project, which is my family's treasure, is the big cookbook which is a collection of over 100 years of my family's recipes gathered from my grandmother's when they were young homemakers through my mother and mother-in-law's years in the kitchen and then through my some forty + years spent in my kitchen, as well. It is a collection of great foods, perfected and rightly seasoned, and lots of food memories sealed with love from child hood experiences around the table. The children's books were fun projects that delighted my imagination and lend laughter to the children who read them. Writing can take you anywhere you want to go and introduce you to a multitude of people and experiences both imagined and real. There is nothing more fun to do than to sit down with pen and paper and create something of value to inform, to educate, to entertain, to inspire.