MY NOT-SO-SECRET HISTORY

I grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. After college–a tricky educational adventure that included one expulsion, one hospitalization for anorexia, and three transfers to three colleges (one of which I attended twice, but not consecutively)–I moved to Tifton, Georgia to work in a halfway house for recovering addicts. A year later I returned to school for a graduate degree in clinical psychology. For 15 years I worked  as a therapist, a behavior specialist with developmentally disabled adults, and as a psychological examiner.

In 1997, I left mental health to pursue art and writing full time (if you’re curious about my art, head over to Danashavinartist.com, but please, come back!). In 2002, I landed a gig as a monthly columnist for the Lifestyle section of the Chattanooga Times Free Press, which has brought me great joy, a loyal following, and recognition from the Green Eyeshade awards, recognizing excellence in journalist across the southeast, and the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. My columns appear every third Sunday of the month. I’ve also been happy to find homes for a whole bunch of essays and articles about such diverse topics as recovery, fulfillment, work, home, life coaching, and all things dog, and have been nominated for Best American Essays and a Pushcart Prize. 

 My essays and articles have appeared in Garden and Gun, Oxford American, The Sun, Psychology Today, Today.com, Next Avenue, PBS, AARP’s The Ethel, The Writer, Writersdigest.com, Bark, Parade.com, Alaska Quarterly Review, Fourth Genre, Third Coast, Hawaii Pacific Review, Gravy (the newsletter of the Southern Food Alliance), Edge business journal, and numerous alternative health, arts, and entertainment newspapers, and I have an article forthcoming in Travel and Leisure.  I have been a panelist and workshop presenter at Pennsylvania’s Keystone College literary conference, The Gathering, at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga State, and at the Meacham Writers Workshop, and have spoken and read about recovery and issues of self-acceptance for the Eating Disorders Information Network (EDIN), the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) , the Unitarian Universalist Church, Unity Church, the Jewish Cultural Center, and at various book clubs, writers groups, performance venues, and fundraisers.

I have been a guest-blogger for eating disorder specialists Dr. Nina Savelle-Rocklin and Dr. Stacey Rosenfeld. I was the editor of the Greater Chattanooga Jewish Federation monthly magazine, The Shofar, from 2012 until 2020. I received a literary arts grant through the Lyndhurst Foundation in 2008, and from 1994-96 I was a bi-monthly guest essayist on Chattanooga’s local NPR station. 

My first book is The Body Tourist: A Memoir of Hunger and the Search for Home. It is about the intersection of my anorexia with my mental health career, and about how the  illness invaded every aspect of my life, even after my supposed recovery. Want to read some reviews? Check out my NEWS page.

My most recent book is Finding the World: Thoughts on Life, Love, Home and Dogs. It’s a collection of twenty years’ worth of my most popular Chattanooga Times Free Press columns. 

I am currently at work on a collection of essays called Dinners With Friends.