Today we’d like to introduce you to Dana Wall.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
DANA WALL – Psychology/MBA/CPA/MFA powerhouse who managed Hollywood chaos before becoming full-time writer in 2022. Daughter of psychiatrist father and PhD English teacher/lawyer mother—basically raised in a think tank where Freud met Shakespeare met legal briefs. Turns industry insider knowledge into sharp fiction, poetry, and short screenplays, full length screenplays, TV pilots that audit souls and expose power’s true cost.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
After riding the CPA/MBA rollercoaster through twenty years in the entertainment industry, I thought I knew something about calculated risks. But it wasn’t until I earned my MFA from Goddard College in Vermont that I found the courage to take the biggest gamble of all: becoming a full-time writer.
I’d been writing since childhood—stories tucked into desk drawers, poems scribbled in margins—but nothing ever saw publication. In 2022, I made a deliberate pivot, diving headlong into flash fiction, short stories, poetry, creative nonfiction, pilots, short screenplays, and feature scripts. My world exploded.
The math was brutal: roughly 600 rejections to earn 10 laurels and quarter, semi and finalist positions, plus over 60 pieces published in online and print magazines. Each “no” taught me something about persistence, about refining my voice, about the strange alchemy between craft and luck.
But the moment that changed everything came when a Yale professor discovered my short story “The Last Testimony of Glacier B-17” in Tupelo Quarterly. He reached out to ask if he could use it as a teaching sample for his class. Twenty years of spreadsheets and strategic planning hadn’t prepared me for that email—the validation that my words could teach someone else something worth learning.
That’s when I knew the rollercoaster had finally brought me home.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
The Authentic Alchemist
Most writers either struggle to find their voice or force themselves into artificial quirkiness. I’ve spent decades being genuinely, unapologetically myself—which means when I transitioned from spreadsheets to Final Draft, I didn’t have to manufacture a perspective. I already had one.
My writing is a living autobiography disguised as fiction. The Van Cleef red mini Alhambra on my left wrist becomes a talisman in my stories. My husband’s 35-year comedy routine informs my dialogue’s rhythm. Duke probably wags his way through my characters’ emotional beats. My children’s growth mirrors the hope I thread through even my darkest pieces. Even my nails—as we see in “Ten Small Moons”—become vessels for transformation.
But here’s my secret weapon: I smuggle urgent environmental truths inside gorgeous, magical prose. While other climate fiction hits readers over the head, I seduce them with beauty first. “The Last Testimony of Glacier B-17” doesn’t lecture about global warming—it breaks hearts with a dying ice sheet’s final words. That’s the Plath influence: making pain gorgeous. The Austen influence: embedding social criticism in irresistible storytelling. The Woolf influence: letting consciousness flow like water.
I’m not trying to be different—I simply am. In a literary landscape full of writers performing authenticity, I’m actually living it. That combination of business acumen, environmental urgency, family devotion, and poetic sensibility creates stories that feel both intimate and universal.
I write like someone who has something genuinely important to say and knows exactly how to make people want to listen.
Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
Finding My Pack
I’ve always been a lone wolf—in accounting, in life, in writing. For decades, I searched for mentors in corporate boardrooms and never found them. Spreadsheets don’t nurture souls. Balance sheets don’t teach you how to balance vulnerability with craft.
But the moment I started getting published, I discovered something extraordinary: editors who were also teachers, collaborators, alchemists of language. These weren’t the red-pen wielding critics I’d imagined. They were the best people on earth with words, and they saw potential in my work that I couldn’t see myself.
I’ve learned to trust my editors completely. They take my pieces from almost extraordinary to extraordinary—not by changing my voice, but by helping me hear it more clearly.
Recently, I had the privilege of working with a Senior Editor at Brink on a flash piece called “Taxonomy of Ghosts.” For three to four months, he sent me note after note, each one a small revelation. We’d excavate a single sentence for weeks, polish one metaphor until it gleamed, question every word choice until the piece sang with precision. What emerged was something I’m genuinely proud of—not just my story, but our story, shaped by his patient guidance.
After twenty years in accounting, I never found a single mentor who cared about my growth. Now, after just a few years of serious writing, I’ve discovered there are people out there who will spend months helping you find the perfect word.
The lone wolf finally found her pack.
Contact Info:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danaslotkinwall/
- Other: search google – Dana Wall – Writer or Author
Image Credits
Artwork by Designunlikely.com for Red Migration
