C. D. Bonner

C. D. (Dean) Bonner was born and raised in rural Georgia but can claim naturalized citizenship in Tallapoosa County, Alabama and Virginia Beach, Virginia as a retired Coast Guard veteran. C. D. Bonner left the tarpaper shacks of Appalachia for a long military career, rising through the enlisted and officer ranks. He was a skilled Morse telegrapher and a calming voice during many search and rescue cases. He left a town of 300 souls to travel the world, living in Boston, New Orleans, DC, and even on the island of Guam for a couple of years.

Dean is a skilled Studebaker car mechanic, tube radio repairman and a weekend gold prospector. He is a professional narrator. His upcoming projects include recording two albums of his original comedy and writing a new compilation of short stories.

His partner PJ, a multi-talented artist, shares these same interests. Together, they travel and spend time at homes in Alabama and Virginia. His nonfiction (mostly humorous) Southern family coming of age stories collection, "I Talk Slower Than I Think" was written in his chilly "office" in the hallway of the 1885 house he and PJ are restoring in Camp Hill, Alabama.

Dean worked as a paid columnist at The Dadeville Record and is a freelance writer for Lake Magazine and for Lake Martin Living magazine.

He was a contributing editor for Lisa Ditchkoff's "The Girl with Caterpillar Eyebrows."

His personal essay, "Seeking Asylum," about visiting his mother in the asylum at Milledgeville, Georgia at age four, was a winner in the national 2013 Alabama Literary Competition (AlaLitCom). The competition run is by the Alabama Writers' Conclave.