Welcome to the second in a series of guest blogs introducing some of my Arkansas writer friends and their publications.
Today I want you to meet Dorothy (Dot) Hatfield, from Beebe. I met Dot at the Central Arkansas Writers’ critique group. Although Dot works full time, she also writes, participates in church and appears on stage at the theater on the square in Searcy. Last year, this busy bee received a Life-Time Achievement Award for all of her accomplishments. I’ve learned a lot from Dot and appreciate her friendship.
HERE’S DOT!
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| DOROTHY “DOT” HATFIELD |
I am a mother, grandma, and “Great-Grandma Dot.” After years as a stay at home mom, I spent my professional career working for non-profit agencies in Oklahoma, Texas, and Tennessee. Though I am long past the age of retirement, I still enjoy working at an education cooperative.
I have always journaled. In my early 60s, I took a course which piqued my interest in writing short fiction. When one of the stories still seemed incomplete after I had written the allotted word count, I decided, with the help of my critique group, that it needed to be a book.
Thus was born The Last to Know, a recounting of a woman’s first year of widowhood and her spiritual coming of age.
A couple of years later, I took an old story I’d heard from my Mother-in-Law and began to think “what if . . .?” This musing became To Find a Home, the tale of a young girl looking for her birth parents.
For years, I had dabbled with the account of my grandfather’s life. The sheriff in a small town in Oklahoma, he was shot in a bank robbery. The story was engaging – but there were so many details I didn’t know. I couldn’t imagine how to write it as creative non-fiction. Finally, dubbing it a novel based on a true story, I completed An Ordinary Day in 2014.
While I wouldn’t label my novels Christian fiction, each of them has a faith-based lesson for the protagonist that results in spiritual growth.
The Last to Know is set in current times; To find a Home is set in the Seventies, deliberately to avoid DNA; and An Ordinary Day happened in 1928.
In between novels I also have had a play (RIP, Emma Lou Briggs) published and performed locally, a collection of short stories (Every Day a New Day) published, and, most recently, a collection of essays from my blog (Did Anyone Read My Story?) released.
All my books are on Amazon.com. You can visit my Author’s page there at http://www.amazon.com/Dot-Hatfield/e/B004HL64I0.
Most are on Kindle. And of course I have a stash in the back seat of my car.
Dot is great storyteller. I hope you’ll check on some of her books and visit her blog: First Person Limited.
Copyright © Reflections from Dorothy’s Ridge 2016.All rights reserved
Reflections from Dorothy 
Marvelous!! Thanks for sharing Dot's story. Quite a large output. And, she's working on another novel! The Energizer Bunny personified.
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She puts me to shame. I appreciate you girls guest posting. Love you!
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I enjoy Dot's writing and would love to come to one of her plays someday!
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I've seen a couple of times and she's a hoot. You must come next time she's in a play and we'll go see her.
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Dot's a great writer. I love her sense of humor which shines through quite often in her writings.
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I agree. Dot writes well on a variety of subjects and has a great sense of humor.,
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