Alana White

About the Author. . .


Alana White holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English and Journalism and a Master’s Degree in English with an emphasis on literature from Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Upon graduation from college, she moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where she lives with her husband, two cats, and a feisty Schnauzer named “Fedo” (pronounced “Feeedo”). And sometimes called “Speedo.”

She is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, Mid-South Chapter (Kentucky and Tennessee), and 2003-2004 President of the Middle Tennessee chapter of Sisters in Crime, an international organization for mystery writers and readers.

More about me

I was born in Paducah, Kentucky, but grew up in a military family. By the time I was eighteen, I’d traveled a lot and gone to school in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida; New Mexico; the Azores Islands (Portugal); and San Antonio, Texas, where I graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School. Though I’m glad to have lived in all those places and enjoyed a wealth of experiences, I remember clearly how happy I was when my family finally settled down in the Land Between the Lakes region of Kentucky.

Since we did travel so much and I was shy, I spent a lot of time in the library—school libraries, the bookmobile, public libraries—reading. My favorites were books like The Man in the Iron Mask and Ivanhoe. Historical novels are still high on my list of favorite reading. Probably that’s why my first novel, Come Next Spring, is set in 1949, and why I decided to write about Sacagawea, whose story takes place in the early 1800s. (Now, Sacagawea was a real traveler!)

I discovered how hard it is to write a book when I was eleven and gave it a try; I wish I still had those pages! When I was in college in Bowling Green, I minored in journalism and worked on the newspaper staff, doing feature stories. In 1972, I graduated with honors and moved to Nashville, where my love for country music and writing prompted interviews with progressive bluegrass and new acoustic bands, and articles for national music magazines like Bluegrass Unlimited. Two of my favorite interviews were with banjoist Bela Fleck (that was back when Bela performed bluegrass music more often than jazz) and Grandpa Jones. Today, my family especially likes Alison Krauss and Union Station.

These days when I travel, I enjoy going to Italy, particularly Florence and a small town in Tuscany called Castellina in Chianti. An independent scholar of the Italian Renaissance, I collect books on that time in history, particularly books about Lorenzo de’ Medici. My main hobby is genealogy, which takes me back to memories of my family in Kentucky. The only “problem” is that while genealogy is fun, it’s also time-consuming and a lot of work! I also enjoy visiting with all my writer-friends and collecting autographs.

If you’d like to contact me, please do. I’ll enjoy hearing from you.