About Donovan Noel

Donovan Noel is a writer with roots in both Texas and France, where his love for Paris and its cemeteries often winds its way into his work. Before fiction, his life was defined by tennis: first as a ball boy at age seven, then as a player for Texas A&M, and later as a coach who founded the Texas Excellence Tennis Academy and guided players to collegiate and professional careers. He was nominated as a USPTR National Coach—before finally trading his racket for a keyboard.

A brief (and ill-fated) detour into poker proved far less rewarding; as Donovan likes to admit, losing doesn’t pay the bills.

Oddities

Orthodox Hindu
Half French, quarter Norwegian, quarter Irish
INFP-A (The Mediator) - shares with Shakespeare and Victor Hugo
Devout meditator who loves to “live with eyes closed”
Past life as a jackal — guardians, tricksters, and companions in myth and life

Obsessions

Black-backed Jackals
Montmartre & Père Lachaise
Autumn (especially pumpkins)
Dark European chocolate
Coca-Cola (with alarming devotion)
Favorite books: The Little Prince, The Count of Monte Cristo, Othello
Favorite film: Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams
Favorite composer: Erik Satie (Gymnopédie No. 1)
Favorite American landscape: New England
Favorite Painting: Liberty Leading the People (Eugene Delocroix)
Favorite Artist: Caravagio & Rembrandt
Guiding phrase: La joie de vivre (“The joy of life”)

Previous Tennis Sponsors
- who still get a shout-out!

I write of lives haunted, bound, and reborn—where friendship and sacrifice carve the path to freedom.

- Donovan Noel