About Carol D. O’Dell

“I was adopted at age four to Southern, fundamentalist parents

in their mid-fifties—what more could a writer want?”

 

Carol D. O’Dell’s world changed the day she was adopted. Taken from Daytona Beach to Atlanta and raised by adoring parents of a fiery faith, Carol was steeped in Bible stories and bedtime stories. She is drawn to the Southern, the reverent and irreverent found in art, nature, faith, and man.

 Carol D. O’Dell’s gripping memoir Mothering Mother: A Daughter’s Humorous and Heartbreaking Memoir, and is for the “sandwich” generation and overflows with humor, grace and much needed honesty.

 

Her fiction and nonfiction work has appeared in numerous publications including Atlanta Magazine, Voices of Alzheimer’s, Southern Revival, MARGIN, Blue Moon Review, Water’s Edge, The Pisgah Review, and AIM, America’s Intercultural Magazine.

 

Carol is a Jacksonville Universitygraduate, creative writing teacher and inspirational speaker and has been featured on CNN, Fox and numerous television and radio programs across the country. She is a family advisor at www.Caring.com and her blog is syndicated on www.hopethrives.org. Her stories and insights on caregiving, inspiration, spirituality, writing, and Alzheimer’s issues offer hope and purpose. Visit her website is www.caroldodell.com.

 

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A little history:

I teach a lot of memoir classes,marketing and writing classes at colleges, universities community centers, senior centers and women’s groups. I love words and unearthing stories in others and seeing that light bulb moment go off in their heads as their pens begin to move across the page.

One of the greatest priveledges has been to listen to caregivers and family members share their lives, hurts, fears, and tears with me. I never knew what a sacred and profound effect this would have on me.

I was a children’s minister for fifteen years, including being a puppeteer. I love children’s books and collect first edition picture books. I also worked at the Museum of Contemporary Art, and am drawn to nature, art, and the spiritual connection that flows through life.

My “other” hobbies are painting, cooking and gardening. I love to be on or near water. I don’t buy houses to live in, I buy backyards to live in.

Don’t even talk to me before I’ve had my morning coffee. I need lots of alone time–and I also need people so I have to learn to balance. I have a wicked, quirky sense of humor and think a good belly laugh is about the best thing in the world.

I value my marriage, my children and my friends. 

On the Briggs-Meyers personality test, I’m a ESFP, which means I’m a party looking for a place to happen.

FORTHCOMING BOOKS: 

SAID CHILD,the prequel to Mothering Mother,

WHITE IRIS, a novel based on a woman who quits her life to see all 864 Vincent Van Gogh paintings,

WHEN STARS FALL, a YA trilogy about a city girl who finds herself tangled in a small town mystery as she confronts predjudice and a pending murder case. 

~Carol