Donald Michael Platt received his B.A. in History from the
University of California at Berkeley. After two years in the Army, he
went to graduate school at San Jose State where one of his short stories was published in the college’s literary magazine, The Reed,
and won the following awards in the annual Senator Phelan Literary
Contest: 1st & 2nd in Plays; 1st & 2nd in Essays; 1st & 3rd
in Free Verse.
After teaching English and Creative Writing at Los Gatos
Union High School, he moved to southern California and began his
professional writing career. He sold to the TV series, Mr. Novak, ghosted Your Hair and Your Diet for health food guru, Dan Dale Alexander, and wrote for and with
diverse producers, among them Harry Joe Brown, Sig Schlager, Albert J.
Cohen, and Al Ruddy as well as Paul Stader Sr., dean of Hollywood
stuntmen and stunt/2nd unit director. Also, options were taken on his
unpublished WWII fighter ace novel and several treatments.
While living in Hollywood, Donald married Ellen, who is from
Brazil, and he taught Creative Writing and Advanced Placement European
History at Fairfax High School where he also was Social Studies
Department Chairman. After living in Florianópolis, Brazil, setting of A Gathering of Vulutres. In 2011, they moved to Florida where he wrote as a with: Vitamin Enriched, pub. 1999, for Carl DeSantis, founder of Rexall Sundown Vitamins; and The Couple’s Disease, Finding a Cure for Your Lost “Love” Life, pub. 2002, for Lawrence S. Hakim, MD, FACS, Head of Sexual Dysfunction Unit at the Cleveland Clinic.
Donald’s books have won awards. Rocamora was a finalist in the 2012 International Book Awards for Historical Fiction, and A Gathering of Vultures was a finalist in the Indie Book awards for Horror in 2013. His new Novel, Bodo the Apostate was recently an Editor’s Choice pick of the Historical Novel Society, and could be selected for nomination 2016 HNS Indie Award.
Recently another of his books has won awards. Close to the Sun was a finalist in “Military Fiction” category at the National Indie Excellence Awards, and was was also a finalist in “Military” category at the Next Generation Indie Book Awards.
Donald is currently being house trained by his new cat, Bodo, a loquacious tyrant.
