DJ Steele

DJ Steele, a graduate of the University of Georgia, was one of the first female foresters hired in the private sector where she worked in the timber industry for over twenty years. Prior to writing her own thriller, Declared Dead, she edited five award-winning novels for her husband, also a thriller writer. She enjoys research and weaving historical facts into her work of fiction.\n\n She lives in Northern Colorado where she is working on her second novel.\n\nFirst and foremost, I love a travel adventure. It is wonderful to experience new cultures, explore different parts of the country, try new things (like dog sledding, rappel off a cliff, a shark dive), and meeting wonderful people along the way.\n\nTravel recharges my energy and boosts my positivity. I am the glass is half full kind of gal.\n\n Perhaps growing up as an Air Force brat has something to do with my wanderlust. I was born in the Philippines and went to ten different schools by the time I graduated high school. I have lived in Germany, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Indiana, Florida, Texas, Montana, \u0026amp; Mississippi and now I have landed in a place I love, Fort Collins, Colorado. My husband and I hike as much as possible.\n\nAnd yes, people in Colorado keep telling me I have a southern accent.\n\n I earned my Bachelor of Science degree in Forestry from the University of Georgia. The summer before graduation I had a summer job cruising timber in Lake City, Florida. The company would drop me off in a remote area of swamps and timber land (before cell phones) and my job was to walk through the forest and collect data. One morning while cruising timber, I discovered the body of a young man. It was that event which lead to my job with another timber company after graduation. That's another story for another time. I was one of the first female foresters hired in the private sector where I worked in the timber industry for over twenty years. Now you know I go way back.\n\nPrior to writing my own thriller, I edited five award-winning thrillers for my husband, also a thriller writer. Writing does not flow naturally from my hands. I have a lot of ideas for stories, but how to write ninety-plus thousand words to complete a novel is like learning to play golf and spending the entire time in the sand trap. After I finally finished my first novel, I decided I had fulfilled my obligation to write a story about a real life hero in a fiction story. Yet, there is always something in my brain pushing me back to the keyboard.\n