Biography of Dana Stabenow

Dana Stabenow is an Alaskan author, and she was born in Anchorage Alaska, on March 27, 1952. If you have read her Kate Shugak books, you'll note that they all take place in Alaska. Most of Dana's books are mysteries and thrillers.

Dana was an only child of a single mother who made her living on a fish tender, and this is where Dana grew up. The fish tender was on the Gulf of Alaska. Dana was a little bit envious of kids that lived on shore, and she states that she went through days of feeling seasick. Dana occupied a lot of her time in fact, by writing stories about kids that lived their normal lives on the shore, so she was quite young when writing became her outlet.

Dana attended school like any normal child, and by high school she attended Seldovia High School starting in 1965, and graduated in the year of 1969. After that period in her life, Dana did various types of jobs in order to make enough money for attending college. She attended the University of Alaska, and by 1973 she graduated from that school holding a bachelor of arts degree in journalism.

After her college graduation, Dana spent some time goofing off, and she took a backpacking trip to Europe with a good friend. When she made her return trip back home, she was broke, and then she took a job for the Alyeska Pipeline in order to earn some much needed cash, and then later worked for British Petroleum. Dana did more traveling to Hawaii, this time, with the money she was making.

1982 was a significant year for Dana. She was turning 30 this year, and she was trying to figure out which way she wanted to go with her life at this time. It was at this point and time, that Dana returned to college again for a higher degree. She graduated with a masters by 1985, and must have been writing during all of this time since her goal was to get a book published while she still had some money. She worked on her book, "Second Star," which was purchased by a publisher, Ace Science Fiction in 1990. The bad news was, once the book was purchased, it was not received well at all. So that in itself was a huge disappointment for Dana.

Dana didn't give up there, however. She thought up the character of Kate Shugak, and wrote the first book of that series. It was 1991 by then, and her editor feeling confident that she could write many more of these and have it be a success, set up a contract agreement for more of these books. Dana did write many more, and the first book, "A Cold Day for Murder," earned an Edgar award.