Donna Bryson

Vincent Bzdek, editor-in-chief of The Gazette in Colorado Springs, says of Donna Bryson's latest book: “All of us who live in communities with a large number of vets can come away from this tale inspired with ideas about reaching out to our soldiers.” Bryson recounts Home of the Brave how a small businesswoman in a small town started a project now called the Welcome Home Alliance for Veterans. The businesswoman, Melanie Kline, was inspired after watching a 2011 CBS Sunday Morning segment on wounded vets learning to kayak. Kline became determined to do something to help a population facing high rates of suicide, divorce, homelessness and unemployment. In just a few years, Welcome Home attracted the support of others in Montrose, Kline’s Colorado town of 20,000. Welcome Home hosts a biannual outdoors festival that brings vets from across the country to hunt, fish and kayak. It helped Montrose and its surrounding county develop a white water river park they hope will boost local tourism. It organized internships that offered young wounded vets a chance to consider what they would do with the rest of their lives. At its volunteer-run drop-in center, vets can get a cup of coffee along with counseling and advice on jobs and training. Kline, who has no military experience herself, built a partnership between civilians and veterans that has energized an entire town and could be a model for other communities across the U.S. Here’s a link to an excerpt the Gazette ran: http://gazette.com/colorado-author-writes-of-womans-welcome-home-montrose-center-for-vets/article/1620302 And keep scrolling ... Home of the Brave made Military Times's 2018 Spring Reading guide: https://www.militarytimes.com/…/military-times-spring-read…/ Bryson's previous book, It's a Black White Thing, won first place in the nonfiction book category in the National Federation of Press Women 2015 Communications Contest. It also won first in the same category in the Colorado Press Women’s 2015 Communications Contest, and was shortlisted for the City Press Tafelberg Nonfiction Award, a national South African prize. Bryson was an Associated Press correspondent in South Africa from 1993 to 1996, during the tumultuous transition from apartheid democracy. She returned as AP's Johannesburg-based chief of bureau from 2008 to 2012. Bryson also has reported for the AP from South Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Since returning to the United States in 2012, Bryson has freelanced for a variety of of publications, including AP, Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, Stars and Stripes, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and US News and World Report. Bryson lives with her husband and daughter in Denver.