Marilynn Donnellan

I scratched out my first fiction story (pretty bad) when I was in grade school and have been writing and improving my skills since (school newspapers, yearbooks, and work-related articles in trade journals). I was a newspaper reporter and photographer for a few years and then was recruited to be the executive director of a small nonprofit, the first of five nonprofits in five states.

My 23-year career as a nonprofit CEO triggered my first book on nonprofit management in 2000. When I started my nonprofit consulting firm more than 12 years ago, I began selling online guides, based on the first book, and developing an international market. One of the guides, The Six-Hour Strategic Plan, won an award for innovation. The guides were picked up by CharityChannel Press last year, who published the material in a three-book series, Nonprofit Management Simplified. I self-published two other non-fiction books before settling on the use of CreateSpace for all of the other books (fiction and non-fiction). I have published a total of 60 books, guides, webinars and training modules in the past five years.

To challenge my writing skills, I started work last year on a science fiction, four-book, series (The Book Liberators) set for release later this year. My first murder mystery, “Give ’til it Hurts,” was released in 2017.