Donna W. Hill
Donna W. Hill is an author, singer-songwriter, recording artist, speaker and avid knitter. She and her photographer husband Rich live among the frogs and birds in Pennsylvania's Endless Mountains with Mo, Donna's guide dog, a male, yellow Lab and Goofus, their rescued strawberry blonde male tabby.
Her educator-recommended novel The Heart of Applebutter Hill is a high school mystery with excursions into fantasy for middle school and older readers. It was reviewed in Future Reflections and Word Gathering magazines and by local papers and TV, including by students of Lackawanna Trail High School (WNEP, TV-16 Scranton, PA)
Born legally blind from Retinitis Pigmentosa, Donna was the first blind student to complete twelve years in the Easton (Pennsylvania) Area School District. She was bullied throughout school, and teachers either believed she shouldn't be in public school or that she was faking her vision loss. She is keenly aware of the need for greater understanding of blindness by the public.
Hill's purpose in writing this book is two-fold: to open the eyes of the sighted world about blindness and to give blind teens a role-model like themselves. Sighted readers can meet an authentic blind person in the safe setting of an exciting mystery adventure. Blind teens and adults get a rare opportunity to see themselves in fiction.
A long-time Philadelphia street performer, online journalist and contributor to local newspapers, Hill's short stories and memoirs appear in magazines including Magnets & Ladders, Slate & Style and the Braille Monitor. Books featuring her writing include Haven (Plaisted Publishing’s Christchurch Mosques attacks fundraiser, 2019); Behind Our Eyes: a Second Look (disability perspectives anthology, 2013); On the Wings of Pink Angels (Dawn Colclasure’s breast cancer survivors’ anthology, 2012); and Now: Embracing the Present Moment (Rick Singer, 2011).
A talk show host and producer for RICB, a radio reading service for blind people in Philadelphia, her coverage of the Carter Inauguration marked the first time a blind representative of such a service was awarded national press credentials. Hill also interviewed local and national celebrities, including the late blind guitarist Doc Watson. Dr. Kent Gustavson interviewed Hill for his biography of Watson, Blind, But Now I See (2010).
An experienced talk-show guest, she has been interviewed by psychologist Dr. James Sutton ("The Changing Behavior Network"), Janie Degenshein (“On the Bright Side” WTOE radio), Nancy Reed and Lisa Smith (Big Blend Magazine's “Champaign Sundays”) and has appeared on "Eyes on Success," "Disability Matters" and "Blind & Beyond" among others. She was recognized by Stanford University's Stanford Social Innovations Review, "Third Sector Grit" (July 2010).
Donna self-produced three recordings of her music. Rainbow Colors and Harvest, as Donna Weiss, and The Last Straw as Donna Hill. When Rainbow Colors debuted, she appeared on “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross (WHYY-fm. She appeared multiple times on WHYY’s Sunday evening folk music show with the “Dean of Folk DJs” Gene Shay.
Donna received recognition for many of her songs for special occasions. She was honored by the US Submarine Veterans of WWII of Pennsylvania for “O Becuna,” the Fellowship of the USS Olympia for “The Ballad of the Olympia,” and the Glenside, Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce for “The Challenger's Challenge.”
Her book Unopened Gifts: Tales Out of School, (1994), was published with a grant from the Lutheran Brotherhood (now Thrivent). It was distributed through the country by the Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and by the ELCA’s Southeastern Synod of Pennsylvania to help congregations integrate people with disabilities.
