Donald Harington

Although he was born and raised in Little Rock, Donald Harington spent nearly all of his early summers in the Ozark mountain hamlet of Drakes Creek, his mother's hometown, where his grandparents operated the general store and post office. There, before he lost his hearing to meningitis at the age of twelve, he listened carefully to the vanishing Ozark folk language and the old tales told by storytellers. His academic career was in art and art history because, although determined to become a novelist (he wrote his first one at six), he felt that his ultimate teaching vocation should not interfere with his writing. He has taught art history at a variety of colleges in New York, New England, South Dakota and finally at his alma mater, the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, where he has been lecturing for fifteen years in the same room where he first took courses in art history. He lives in Fayetteville with his wife Kim.