About Don

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I grew up in Burlington, North Carolina but spent many nights in remote backcountry campsites in the Uwharrie and Appalachian Mountains with fellow Boy Scouts and other friends. Since then I have been fortunate enough to spend nights under the stars in many remote locations, from the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the Sierra Nevada Mountains of southern California, on Mount Rainier in Washington State, to the Brooks Range in Alaska and many other places in between. This is a list I am always trying to expand!

I earned a Civil Engineering degree from North Carolina State University and later obtained a Professional Engineer's license while working for the State of North Carolina in the Department of Transportation. In the 1990's I combined my curiosity and a desire to create with my organizational skills to write a trail guidebook for the Uwharrie Lakes Region in central NC.

DTC Publishing was started in 1998 to support sales of that first book – Uwharrie Lakes Region Trail Guide, which was published by Bill Webster and Earthbound Sports. Bill handles most of the wholesale distribution to outdoor stores and bookshops for this book. I sell signed copies through my website and in person.

In 2004, I self-published a second book - Star Trails Navajo. This book is a field guide to the Navajo constellations and star stories. Seeing the night sky from a different perspective fascinates me. Constellations based primarily on ancient Greek mythology are interesting, but I found learning how other peoples in North America tied their lives and cultures into the patterns of stars we see in the sky to be a lot more interesting.

In 2009, I self-published an updated second edition of Star Trails Navajo using the print-on-demand services of Createspace. That is also the year I began updating trail data for the Uwharrie Lakes Region Trail Guide.

In early 2014, I published a Kindle version of Star Trails Navajo. In August of that year, the Second Edition of Uwharrie Lakes Region Trail Guide was published, again by Earthbound Sports.

I always have numerous project ideas floating around in my head. There are several more books in there, and who knows what else. I collected enough research material for a Star Trails – Pawnee book. I have an outline for a book on Adventure Race Navigation. I’d love to compile stories from some of my trekking, paddling, racing, or motorcycle Touring Adventures into a book or two. My next books may be about Lost Uwharrie places that are all but forgotten and a Trail Guide for the Triangle region of NC.

In between working on all of these past projects, I managed to hold down that day job and help my wife raise our family. But the girls are out of college now and blazing their own trails. I achieved the milestone of retiring from my day job in 2018. I hope to spend more time on my writing and bring more of these project ideas to reality!

If you'd like to keep up with where my writing adventure takes me next, please subscribe to my newsletter. Your continued feedback and support is appreciated and helpful. Please tell others about my books and my website - word of mouth is the most powerful form of publicity. And if you haven't already, buy some of my books and get out for your own adventures!

September 2018, Utah

Don Childrey is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

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