Charlotte Donlon’s writing and work are always rooted in helping her audience and participants notice how art and other good things help them belong to themselves, others, the divine, and the world.
Charlotte's first book, The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other, was published by Broadleaf Books in 2020. The Great Belonging explores various angles of loneliness and belonging. In vulnerable, thoughtful prose, Donlon helps us understand our own occasional or frequent loneliness and offers touchpoints for understanding alienation.
She is currently writing her second book, Spiritual Direction for Writers, which will be published by Eerdmans in 2025.
Charlotte is an author with a broad audience and a spiritual director for people who inhabit points all along the belief-unbelief spectrum. She includes some faith threads in her writing and work, but her words always strive to be generous and welcoming to people from different spiritual traditions, in addition to those who share her Christian beliefs.
She holds a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Seattle Pacific University where she studied creative nonfiction with Paula Huston and Lauren F. Winner. She holds a certificate in spiritual direction from Selah Center for Spiritual Formation.
Charlotte lives with her husband and their young adult children in Birmingham, Alabama. Some of her favorite things are blooming forsythia at the beginning of spring, sitting on the beach under an umbrella in the summer, glorious golden gingko trees in the fall, and hot toddies in the winter. She enjoys reading in bed anytime, especially on Sundays.
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