Donna Hemans
Donna Hemans is the author of two novels: River Woman and Tea by the Sea (June 2020, Red Hen Press). In 2015, she won the Lignum Vitae Una Marson Award for Adult Literature for the unpublished manuscript of Tea by the Sea.
Donna's short fiction and essays have appeared in The Caribbean Writer, Crab Orchard Review, Witness, Ms. Magazine and Electric Literature, among others. She was the 2007-2008 Black Mountain Institute (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) International Women's Forum Fellow and twice served as the Lannan Visiting Creative Writer in Residence at Georgetown University. She has received residential fellowships from Hedgebrook, Millay Colony for the Arts and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She received her undergraduate degree in English and Media Studies from Fordham University and an MFA from American University.
She lives in Maryland and is the owner of DC Writers Room, a co-working studio for writers.
Twitter: @donna_hemans
Instagram: @donna_hemans
Favorite non-reading activity?
I play tennis several times a week. It’s fun to get on the court and move when so much of my day involves sitting. Sometimes I think tennis teaches me a lot of lessons about the craft of writing. For example, you can make one perfect shot in a game and celebrate it. But if you don’t make several more good, and winning shots, that perfect shot doesn’t matter. Same with writing. One perfect sentence doesn’t matter if the entire chapter or story doesn’t hold up. Besides that, on the court, I can yell at myself when I miss a ball—not so when the entire plot doesn’t work.
Not all books are for all readers… when you start a book and you just don’t like it, how long do you read until you bail?
Usually, I like to read the first page or so of a book and if the voice grabs me, I’ll buy it and read it. But if the book fails to live up to the promise of the first few pages, I’ll give it about 50 pages. Occasionally, if it’s a well-hyped book I’ll continue reading to see if the book gets better or lives up to the hype.
Vacation druthers… City or Rural destination? Why?
Is there a body of water? I like to be around water, preferably seaside or near a river. Water rejuvenates me, and perhaps that’s why water shows up in most everything I write. I especially love the sound of water, the way it lulls you, when it’s crashing against a shore, or cascading down a waterfall.
Is there another profession you would like to try?
When I was about 11 or 12, I asked for a camera and got one. And I’ve been fascinated by photography since. I’d love to be able to see the world with a photographer’s eye, to know exactly how to angle a camera to see and capture the unexpected, to slow down enough to capture the movement of a bird’s wings, how gently a bee lands on bloom, the varying shades of color in a single bloom. There’s only so much of that beauty we can capture with words.
If you could create a museum exhibition, what would be the theme?
Jamaican street signs of the 1970s and 1980s. I remember as a child growing up in Jamaica just about every lamp post, utility pole and wall were covered with posters advertising a political rally or in support of one party or another. This was the case leading up to the elections of the early 1980s. These signs captured the entire country’s angst about democratic socialism version capitalism, and the massive divide in the country. And by 1983, the year Jamaica celebrated 21 years of independence, the street signs shifted. “Jamaica 21” signs were everywhere. It would be fascinating to see visually how a nation heals.
