Dona's Mother and maternal Grandmother knew she was a very special child from early infancy. The two watched months old baby Dona turn and squirm, push and pull, grunt and groan for hours until she succeeded in standing up in her crib to see what was going on. They said she had so much determination and curiosity about her environment at such a young age, there was no doubt she would achieve all her goals in life. Dona has been writing free verse poetry based on feelings and visual stimuli for decades. She's printed in several anthologies, books and magazines. She equated poetry writing to the feeling achieved by early ballet classes and choreographing her own dances on polished hard wood floors to Jazz albums her parents loved. Or the freeing feeling of skiing down a slope or whizzing around an ice or roller rink on weekends. Visually, she had her beloved National Geographic magazines that stimulated her thoughts of life in exotic places, food, clothing and people.
Dona's natural talents were in talking with expressive words early. Dancing, art, crafts, cooking, makeup, doing hair, and noticing every little thing about every little thing. She began writing quietly in the mid-sixties, entered and won contests in the 70's & 80's, started taking writing classes and joined performance groups in the 90's through the present. Dona wound up traveling, modeling and acting for a living with fun creative ventures as a side gigs. Since the advance of phone cameras, Dona became a prolific phone cam photographer.
Word Dances, Poems on Pointe! is the 1st solo poetry picture book but not the last for Dona Elena Hatcher.