Donna Birdwell, author of 'The Recall Chronicles' will be at Deep Vellum for a reading, discussion, signing and reception to celebrate the forthcoming book in the series.
Donna Dechen Birdwell is a former journalist and anthropologist whose fascination with the human condition led her out of academia and into the world of creative storytelling. Donna writes page-turners full of compelling characters, romance, mystery, and action. But they’re also stories that leave readers with pithy stuff worthy of contemplation. Donna is a native Texas and has three degrees from Southern Methodist University. She currently resides in Austin.
Shadow of the Hare (May 2016) is the second volume of Donna Dechen Birdwell’s Recall Chronicles, a series of tales about a 22nd-century world in which no one ages and corporations rule everything, including your personal memories. Main character Malia Poole is a stubbornly dissident bibliophile and author and a member of the Recall movement. She recounts the dangers of life in 21st-century Washington, D.C., where she worked at an underground secondhand books shop. After fifty years of self-imposed exile in West Texas, Malia returns to her childhood home in Dallas to find things have only gotten worse. No longer able to ignore certain questions about her past, she travels to Nigeria and India, doggedly pursuing the answers her heart demands.
“A vision of the future that’s both harrowing and endlessly entertaining.” – Kirkus Reviews
“This terrifying prophecy is a must read for anyone who has any hope for humanity. Unplug your corporate media machine and read this book!” – Scribe
“I haven’t seen a book with this wide ranging ambition and perspective in a long time. Dystopian literature is always at its bet when it’s actually utopian in its heart. Donna Birdwell’s vision, a future gone subtly wrong, seems really more a look at how we might get it right.” – Steven J. Zani, Ph. D.
Way of the Serpent – Recall Chronicles, Vol. I (June 2015)
When Jenda Swain – youthful and vigorous at the age of 111 – encounters an incongruously old woman at an out-of-the-way café, her life veers in a new direction amid unsettling questions about her own identity and her role in the corporation-dominated culture of 2125. Her journey takes her into the arms of an activist artist, who has a quest of his own. Answers come together as their world falls apart.
“Way of the Serpent manages to be at once a page-turner, with mystery, romance, and rebellion driving the plot forward–and a book that sticks with you after you read it. I found myself still pondering some of the passages and themes from this novel days after I’d finished it.” – Claire Villareal, Ph.D.
“Insightful and haunting! Vividly portrayed characters undertake a suspenseful journey of uncovering and fighting a corporate conspiracy.” – Elena Sandovici, author of Dogs With Bagels
Flight of the Owl – Recall Chronicles, Vol. III
Coming in October 2016
The third volume in the series follows the post-apocalyptic journey of Jenda’s brother Jonathan Swain, a disrobed Buddhist monk and fugitive filmmaker who is convinced his plutocrat grandfather left some important secrets hidden at the old family estate in Costa Rica.