D. A. Blankinship

author, educator, photographer, international development activist, and pizza fanatic

D. A. Blankinship's stories immerse you in timeless places where you meet people who are familiar, yet, mysterious. His stories take place in the hopes and fears of a couple with a new baby, in the courage and determination of a young girl growing up in a remote cabin, or in a post-apocalyptic future ruled by a tyrannical government.

Blankinship's characters have serious problems and he takes you into the thoughts and lives of these people as they confront their life-changing crises. Their decisions and the results of their decisions, will surprise you.

In his stories, Blankinship draws on his extensive professional experiences in a variety of settings and places. He has worked as a clinical psychologist at a state school and hospital in Nevada, MO; as a senior research psychologist at a military prison in Fort Riley, KS; as a senior associate with a consulting firm in Fairfax, VA;  and as director of research development at a university-affiliated research corporation in Greeley, CO. In higher education, Blankinship has held teaching appointments with University of Southern California and Pittsburg State University. He has held administrative appointments as associate dean of graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater; and as director of research & sponsored programs and as dean of university extended education at California State University-Stanislaus.

Blankinship is committed to ending the deadly impacts of extreme poverty. While in Ethiopia as a guest of the Prime Minister in 2002, he co-founded Praxis Ethiopia to serve as an international alliance of professionals working to help Ethiopia and sub-Sahara Africa. Returning in 2004, he helped to develop a model for using the prickly pear cactus as a food to help bridge droughts and famines in northeastern Ethiopia. In 2005, he started The Praxis Ethiopia Foundation (www.PraxisEthiopia.org). Since that time, the Foundation has raised funds to help train farmers, healthcare workers, and educators in Ethiopia. Blankinship speaks to civic groups and places of worship on the realities of extreme poverty and the importance of practical solutions for meeting community needs.

Blankinship likes cars. He has driven a formula race car at the Laguna Seca International Speedway in Monterey, California and he spends his leisure time tuning and maintaining his vintage 1973 Porsche 914 Sport.

His other leisure pursuits include photography (particularly landscapes and wildlife), his continuing quest for the perfect homemade pizza, the maximum hopped homebrewed India Pale Ale, and the ideal cup of home roasted coffee (Ethiopian, of course).

Blankinship and his family live in Oswego, Kansas. Their home is situated on seven acres of densely wooded land on a bluff one hundred feet above the Neosho River Valley; it is an excellent setting for writing and for raising the family's rambunctious German Shepherd Dogs.