Donna Hatch-Moore

After we lost our home to a fire my husband and I, along with our pets, were forced to live in our car because shelters will not help anyone with pets. While my husband worked at day labor I would spend the days in our car with the pets.

During the long hours waiting for him I would read. I read A LOT of books during this time. One day I decided to see if I could write and the result was a short story about adoption from a mama cats point of view. Years before I had a Siamese who gave birth to three sleek black male kittens. When they were seven weeks old I found a long haired gray female Manx kitten who was about three weeks old and as different from the boy kittens and the Siamese as could be but Ming adopted her and raised her as her own. The story was Ming explaining to the boys why their sister looked different from them but was still their sister. I sent it into a magazine at my husband's urging and that story was the first I had ever sold.

That success encouraged me to continue writing. I sold several short stories and wrote my first book while we lived in in our car. We managed to save enough money to eventually buy the small 1978 motorhome we now live in. My husband now has a full-time job and I still write.

We are no longer homeless and I do what I can for homeless people here. I donate blankets and pet food to the shelters for the people who have pets - a surprising amount of homeless people have pets and can't stay in shelters. I have also promised God when have enough money I will buy an old motel and turn it into a shelter for the homeless who have pets.