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Other people’s books were once his life, now Keith Donnelly has decided to change that. Three Deadly Drops, the fourth Donald Youngblood Mystery, is scheduled to be released in 2012.
Keith Donnelly was born and raised in Johnson City, Tennessee. He attended Science Hill High School and East Tennessee State University where he graduated with a degree in Economics.
Donnelly always wanted to write. He tried to “write a book” when he was about ten years old. He wrote four pages in a spiral notebook. “It took an hour,” he recalls. “It was hard work. I decided to put my writing career on hold and go outside and play ball with my friends.” He tried writing a play in high school in place of a term paper but his teacher nixed that idea so he wrote the term paper instead. After college he tried writing a science fiction novel but did not finish that either. In his mid-thirties he actually finished a golf novel entitled The Last Shot. There was some interest from an agent at the William Morris Agency in New York but nothing came of it.
“I had a full time job and a family,” Donnelly said. “I didn’t have time to chase down an agent. The percentage of people who write and actually get published is very small. I may pull
The Last Shot off the shelf one day but right now my mind is full of Donald Youngblood.”
Donnelly spent many years in the New York City publishing world as a book manufacturing sales representative. During that time he helped form a contemporary Christian band, Brand New Spirit. As a singer songwriter, members of the band quickly dubbed him “Wordman” because he wrote all the lyrics to their songs. In 1992, ready for a change, he moved back to Tennessee to open a new sales office.
The urge to write was always lurking in the back of his mind so Donnelly thought he would give it one last try. “I got the idea for Three Deuces Down in 1999,” Donnelly said. “I was just playing around with it and having fun. I never seriously thought it would get published." But in 2007 he signed a publishing contract with New South Books in Montgomery, Alabama and Three Deuces Down was released in the fall of 2008. He signed one-book contracts with John F. Blair, Publisher in Winston-Salem, North Carolina for Three Days Dead, released in 2009, and Three Devils Dancing released in the fall of 2010.
Donnelly is a frequent visitor at the local gym, enjoys tennis, racquetball and hiking the many miles of trails in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. He is passionate about downhill skiing and spent a month of 2010 in Salt Lake City skiing and working on Three Devils Dancing. In the winter of 2011, Donnelly was back in Salt Lake City skiing the local resorts and working on book four in the series scheduled to be released mid-2012.
“Every year I think maybe I’m too old for this,” he says about skiing. “Then I get out there and make that first run and think, not yet.” An even longer trip out West is planned in 2012, again skiing and working on another book.
On any given day in the fall, Donnelly, who retired in 2009 to write full time, can be found signing books at Buie Pottery in Buie’s Landing in his home town of Gatlinburg where he and his wife Tessa have resided for the past 18 years.
In addition to this website, all Donald Youngblood Mysteries are available for purchase online at www.blairpub.com, www.barnesandnoble.com and www.amazon.com. You can also order copies by phone via the John F. Blair, Publisher toll-free line by calling 1-800-222-9796. All books are now widely available at book retailers across America. Signed copies are available at Buie Pottery and personalized copies through this website and at signing events.
This article was written exclusively for the Donald Youngblood Mysteries website by: Alex Campbell, freelance journalist.