Once upon a time in the funky 70s, DIY-Danna was born on a not so distant "island" to a proud Afro-Bohemian-American-Indian Parents from Texas, Pat & E.H. (or Elvas). Danna (her real name) was lucky to have two loving maternal Grandparents, Mary & J.T., who encouraged and nurtured her love of reading before she attended school. Her family was too working-class to be considered eccentric, so we'll just call this girl's upbringing as "Not Normal". But the young grrrl grew up believing "Normal" was just a setting on a Washer & Dryer. Sound familiar? Danna had an older sister, Marley (who still bosses her around). Marley was a Thespian/Shakespearean actor at the age of 8. Marley would encourage her 3 year old sister to act out the tragedies of Romeo & Juliet and Julius Caesar. "Normal" child's play for these young ones. Danna soon began staging her own plays and telling stories to entertain company and complete strangers like any "normal" precocious child. She spent a brief time in Oklahoma after her folks split up (for good) and her mother remarried a somewhat starchy but somehow loving Step-Father, Frankie. He thought his youngest step-daughter would make a great scientist or accountant, like him. Danna did enjoy the real microscope she received one Christmas, and did quite well in Math & Science, but she truly excelled in the Arts. Especially the written word and music. After testing with a few other classmates, she was labeled "gifted & talented". This was odd to her because she simply found joy in books and music. It was also a burden to her and other children because they were expected to study more. Ha. (Not funny ha.) She studied even less but still managed to make the honor roll. And then she discovered...

The Viola... and boys. Her sister Marley really became a drama queen as a teen, becoming President of the Drama Troupe, and holding several other popular and important high school positions of responsibility, while Danna became a hopeless Language Arts & Music nerd. After earnining numerous academic awards and having a different crush every week (still happens) she secretly decided to piss off her poor family and become a writer while pretending to love Science, which she was good at. (Ha.) Danna suffered through the growing pains of adolescence, writing bad and sometimes horrible poetry that some people thought was clever and fresh. She wrote a horrible Judy Blume rip-off novel and quickly decided to wait a few more decades to attempt another. In the meantime she would write about her dreams in journals, create more bad poetry, and write story ideas for novels - and screenplays.

Fast Forward to 1993: Danna was a scholarship student at the University of Texas majoring in Biology (Ha) and Pre-Med (Ha-Ha) when she discovers... She can switch her major to English to avoid flunking out (wow!), and still be considered a smart young lady. As long as she becomes a respectable teacher. (Ha.) She has a semi-nervous breakdown before this major change (no pun intended) when she discovers (she seems to rely on that word, "discover") the RTF department and meets one of her dearest friends (who is still working on that advanced degree). She begins creating storyboards, and drawing strange cartoons loosely based on her life. Her best friend at UT reallly liked the homemade comic book like birthday cards she received, and soon the daring borderline S.A.D. (Social Anxiety & Depression) case began painting and making collages of bizarre, slightly Afrocentric images. She still enjoyed reading, especially Playgirl (for the articles, of course) and Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine mysteries. Today she enjoys a healthy balance of Fine Literature, Mysteries, Sci-Fi, Comics and Magazines. And now, besides not using her degree to educate and mold impressionable young minds ("Lucky!", as Napoleon Dynamite would say), she engages in the pursuit of a desktop publishing career (and perhaps graduate school?). But she remembers the simple but sagacious words of her beloved late Grandmother when she feels the pressure of not being what others want her to be: "Do what makes you happy." Danna, a recovering Neo-Luddite, has recently discovered the joys of web publishing. This is where it all comes together for me - art, music, and my grand passion, the thing that makes her the happiest - writing. Men (and women) may come and go, but this grrrl has embraced her weirdness and decided to follow her crazy dreams... One of them is this amateur desktop publishing web site. And the weird grrrl who writes her autobiography in the third-person is living happily ever after... The moral of this story: "Normal" is overrated.