Background

Donny was born in Payson, Utah, lived in Orem until age ten, then moved to Orlando, Florida. Donny's last two years of high school were in Ocala, Florida, where he lived before moving to Angleton, Texas (near Houston) the day after he graduated from High school.

Donny served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Colorado Denver North Mission. Following the mission, Donny transferred from Alvin Community College to Brigham Young University.

While at BYU, Donny married the most ideal person he's ever known-Mollie Johnson. Donny taught at the MTC and graduated from BYU with a Bachelor's Degree in Business.

The Church hired Donny into the Church Educational System upon his graduation. Donny and Mollie were assigned to teach Seminary in Taber, Alberta Canada at a one-man seminary. The two years they lived in Canada form a cherished part of their lives. Their oldest child, Sadie, was born in Canada.

Donny and Mollie moved to Logan, Utah. Donny taught seminary in Brigham City for three years before transferring to Cache valley, where he continues to relish the chance to teach the gospel daily to the young people of the Church.

While living in Logan, Donny completed his Master's Degree in Social Science with an emphasis in Public Administration.

Donny and Mollie are now the parents of five children (Sadie, Myriam, Packer, Hunter, and Holland) and make their home in Millville, Utah. They love their town, neighbors, ward, career, and life in general.

Becoming an Author

When Donny completed his Master's Degree, he had time to pursue a study of one of his intellectual obsessions: economic freedom. For two years he put himself through what he refers to as a self-appointed Master's Degree in Freedom Studies. He came to love the stories of the nation's beginning and the teachings of people like Ezra Taft Benson, Marion G. Romney, J. Reuben Clark, Milton Freidman, Friedrich August Hayek, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, and many others.

After those two years, his wife, Mollie, was talking to her mother about how badly they wanted to pay off their mortgage as quickly as possible. Jolene (Donny's mother-in-law) said to Mollie, "Donny needs to write a book." Mollie looked at Donny and said, "Mom says you need to write a book." He had always wanted to write a book, and Mollie knew that. But this little statement was the catalyst he needed. He simply said, "Okay." (That same mother-in-law, Jolene Johnson, would eventually create the cover for Hanging by The Thread)

Starting the next morning, Donny woke up early and got started. Having decided to write a book, Donny had to settle on what to write. Because of having studied freedom for two years, the choice was easy. He wanted to teach about economic freedom. And he thought the best way to do that would be to package the concepts in a thrilling story.

For the next two weeks he woke early and sat on the couch for two hours every morning with a notebook and plotted out Hanging by The Thread.

Thus began a love affair with the creative process of constructing and writing a story. Donny has come to love 4:00 A.M. His children have offered many prayers that "Dad's book can get published," but they have seldom seen him writing his books.

Donny wrote his first draft in eight months and spent the next six months cleaning it up. After his first rejection, he finally mustered the courage to follow many people's advice and trim the "fat elephant" of his manuscript down to a much sleeker "lion." He was thrilled when the better version sparked interest from publishers. But rejections and revisions continued. Finally, Granite informed him in January 2010 that they will publish his first book in May of the same year.

A highlight of his life was thanking his little ones for their incessant prayers for the publication of their dad's book and telling them it's getting published.