Devon is an author in Durham, North Carolina. She grew up in metro-Detroit in an enormous extended family and was an artist as soon as she could hold a crayon. She put together her first book–with packing tape, cardboard and wrapping paper–in her aunt’s magical bedroom full of bookshelves and a roll-top desk. In fourth grade she won a Young Laureate for the book she wrote about the death of her closest sibling and was pushed further toward her inevitable literary future by an enthusiastic and supportive teacher who let Devon sing her science reports and limerick her way through schooling. In junior high, she lost a Farmers Bureau poetry competition to a little girl who seems like quite a neat lady, now, on Facebook. In college, she rebounded with local awards for her poetry, a stint as editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Parnassus at her alma mater in Indiana, and almost received honors for her philosophy thesis, “The Obligation of Affluence.” She was an assistant editor for The Gale Group before she relocated to Durham and became a mom and a freelance editor/writer/researcher, for a time with QSR Magazine.

Devon loves writing and hopes to keep bringing you novels, blogs, poems, short stories, and essays until well after she should have retired as anything else. She just finished seven years of home school and teaching at a local co-op, and now spends her time between writing, blogging, editing, and looking for an agent/publication. (She is also looking for a part-time job as a bookseller.) She’s also a mother of teens and a dog, and a devoted wife, and her hobbies are singing, reading, painting, yoga, hiking, crafting, cooking, traveling, and enjoying food.

In 2013, Flaherty self-published her first novel (using her indie publishing house, Owl and Zebra Press), Benevolent, which is available widely for purchase on the internet (and at some bookstores and libraries) in paperback and e-book. The book has won recognition with the Paris Book Festival, Hollywood Book Festival, Beach Book Festival, Indie Reader (as an Approved Book), and Reader’s Favorite (Five Star Review). In 2015, she self-published (again with Owl and Zebra) a fantasy novel, The Night of One Hundred Thieves, which was short-listed for the Manly Wade Wellman Award for speculative fiction in 2016. Shortly after, she found herself thrown headlong into homeschooling and stopped acting as the owner of Owl and Zebra Press and reluctantly placed her career on the back burner. As a full-time homeschool educator, Devon chipped away (on many Wednesday nights at Cocoa Cinnamon and the occasional writing residency) on the next novels, short stories, and essays. In 2020, she put the “THE END” on The Family Elephant’s Jewels, and is now seeking an agent. In 2022, she closed up her home school and is back to writing full-time. Another “THE END” happened late in 2022, and editing, (marinating,) writing, and publication-seeking is happening in earnest. Devon maintains her blog, The Starving Artist, at devontrevarrowflaherty.com.

To find out why she is “The Starving Artist,” see the first two blog posts here and especially here.