Moira Donovan
Writer | Novelist | Artist
Moira Donovan loves to let her imagination soar while managing to keep her feet solidly on this beautiful earth. If you don’t find her in her painting studio or at her writing desk, you will find her traipsing about along dirt paths up and down the hills surrounding her Southern California home.
Having lived between New York City, Los Angeles, and rural Vermont, Moira draws deeply from the physical landscapes and the emotions experienced in these places. Her debut novel, Crazy String, is rooted in the belief that even through fracture and grief, love remains a quiet but unstoppable force that connects us to one another.
Moira has an M.A. in English from the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College and taught high school English Literature and Composition for over three decades. For the past 15 years, she has also written the weekly blog, NineCentGirl.com, in addition to publishing essays and articles in various newspapers and journals.
Crazy String
We curate our memories to survive, but the truth eventually forces its way back. Because some stories linger as dreamlike childhood memories, others are buried to be forgotten. But the past rarely stays hidden for long.
In Crazy String, David moves between the controlled clarity of his adult life and the haunting memories of a childhood marked by the “blue light night,” a moment that fractured everything his family once was. As past and present begin to blur, the version of the story he has lived by starts to crack open.
What remains is harder to face: the truth.
This book is a powerful exploration of grief, memory, and the quiet weight of unspoken secrets. Crazy String reveals how families hold together and come undone. At its heart, it is a story about forgiveness, and the realization that only truth has the power to unthread the knots pain has left behind.
Sneak Peek Inside the Novel
The night air hit his face like a hard slap as he drove the motorcycle at breakneck speed. David felt terror in his heart and adrenaline race through his chest as he saw the speedometer hit 90. He leaned the bike to accelerate into the bank. His passenger let out a scream and wrapped her arms tighter around his waist, hands digging into his black t-shirt, while he raced through the stretch of s-curves, one and then another, over and over, like Grand Theft Auto on repeat. That girl, yelling in his ear, yelling to stop, to let her off, to slow, screaming to stop. He ignored her frantic pleas, instead aimed his Yamaha 650 into the stand of tall pines that rose up just ahead. “Stop, David, stop, my children, my little ones, stop this madness, please…”
The jolt from a ringing phone jarred David from his uneasy sleep. He lingered in the nightmare of navigating his motorcycle straight into sure death. He wanted to stop before he crashed, if not for his own life then for whoever rode behind him but every time he tried, his brake was locked. Another ring opened his eyes to the apartment ceiling. On the third ring he reached across Isabella and managed to place the receiver to his ear but was unable to utter a greeting.
“David? David, are you there?” David heard a panicked Beatrice as he watched the digital clock flash from 5:29 to 5:30.
“Wake up, David, I need to talk to you. Pops is talking to her, actually talking to Momma.” As she paused, neither could speak. “David?” he heard his name echoing through sleepiness.
