Donna Salli is Finnish-American, on both sides of a large extended family. She was born and raised in Michigan along the shores of Lake Superior, and like the characters in her novel, A Notion of Pelicans, she has a fascination for the big lake.
Her family also lived, when she was in first grade, with her paternal grandparents on their northern Wisconsin dairy farm. The house had a single water faucet in the kitchen that delivered icy cold water from the well—there was no hot water, no toilet or bath, no central heat. Ironically, in that primitive house, she was given a deep love for the life of the mind and the written word. Every night as her mother tucked Donna and her younger brother into bed, she read poetry and stories to them.
Donna writes in multiple genres—poetry, fiction, drama, and the essay. Her creative work focuses on family, heritage, spirituality, changing gender roles, and other social issues.
For more information about her education, publications, and interests, click here.
Latest Blog Posts
Brother’s Keeper
I’m the firstborn in my family. In this sweet photo, taken at our grandparents’ farm, I’m with my little brother, Robbie. Our grandmother, whom we called Mummu, did the milking—you can see the milk can she’d left to drain, leaning against the house. Our mother liked to tell a story. Robbie didn’t begin to talk as early as most children do. He’d make grunting sounds, in the rhythms and tone of a request. Mom would say, “What do you need, Robbie?” and I would jump in, translating. “He wants a cookie.” Or “He needs a drink of water.” Robbie didn’t have to talk, and he didn’t need to “do.” I saw myself as my brother’s keeper, and I would jump in and help. I had what seems to me, even now, a natural impulse to care for him. The older I’ve gotten, the more complicated that idea has become. Rob and I developed very different adult perspectives and beliefs, leaving me to wonder if I’m still my brother’s keeper.
The Ways of Mice: A Holiday Story
Do you sense at times that there are celestial powers watching over you? Have you felt at other times that loved ones who’ve crossed over still move invisibly around you? I’ve felt those things and wondered about them in my writing. I no doubt will again. But not today. After the recent scary hurricane season, the interminably long and divisive election, I’m in need of an infusion of lightheartedness. I expect you are, too. So today, at the start of this holiday season, and in the spirit of the poet Robert Burns and his ode “To a Mouse” (which he opened with the epigraph, “On Turning her up in her Nest, with the Plough, November 1785”), I am going to tell a story of the ways of mice. It’s a reminder that we humans ought not to act as if we are the be-all and end-all—a reminder to take other creatures into account as we make decisions that impact the earth.
Dear Dad: On Fathers and Daughters
The spiffy young men in the photo above are my father, Oiva, and his brother, Waino. Dad is on the left. It’s not surprising that there’s a dog in the picture with them. Even the dog is beautiful and seems to be posing for the photo. Oiva (pronounced OY-vah) was a dog whisperer—he had invisible charm that every dog could sense. When I’d arrive at Mom and Dad’s with my two Maltese dogs, they would claw at the door to get in and then speed like white lightning right by Grandma in the kitchen to get to Grandpa in the great room. Mom would say, “What am I—chopped liver?” We’d hug, laughing. My pups were astute judges of character. My dear Dad has been gone for twelve years now, and I feel the loss of him every day. Missing him has made me really aware of how people keep walls and borders around themselves.
A Notion of Pelicans – by Donna Salli
On a windblown bluff above Lake Superior sits a fieldstone church. Founded one hundred years ago after a puzzling encounter with a flock of pelicans left Lavinia with a curious notion, Pelican Church still draws inquisitive souls to its pews with the legend that one solitary bird still circles overhead, watching.
These people have notions of their own — a pastor’s wife wants a honeymoon, a professor has harebrained ideas, a business owner is in everyone’s face, a young actress can do or be anything onstage yet struggles with every real-life decision — and their stories, tucked away for years, unfold and glide onto the pages of Donna Salli’s intimate debut novel.
The people of Pelican Church are oh-so-human and expose their mix of shifting hopes and obsessions, protected infidelities, and notions gone awry as one October day swings from sunup to sundown under the watchful gaze of a single pelican.
