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author
William M Davenport
About The Author
William Davenport spent his preteen years in a thinly populated rural area of North Carolina during The Great Depression. Because of failing health, both of Davenports parents ...view moreAbout The Author
William Davenport spent his preteen years in a thinly populated rural area of North Carolina during The Great Depression. Because of failing health, both of Davenports parents became dependents rather than providers while the author was still in diapers. Thus, the onus of supporting Davenports large family of ten children fell upon his older siblings. The author, a frail, sickly child was accordingly sheltered, pampered and doted upon by neighbors, teachers and loving siblings. Those pseudo idyllic years and rustic setting provided the location and characters for Davenports first two novels.
In 1940, the increasing need for medical services and jobs forced the Davenport family to relocate in a tough inner city neighborhood. The thirteen years old author was ill prepared to face the life style awaiting him there. The adventures and misadventures he enjoyed and endured on Railroad Street at the outset of World War II provide the real life setting and characters for There is a Way.
After working for the Atlantic Coast Railroad and serving in the Air Force during the Korean War, the author used the G. I. Bill to pay for his college education. He graduated from East Carolina University in 1963. That same year, Davenport began a career as an aeronautical engineer at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. He retired from NASA in 1995. While writing as a hobby, several of Davenports articles were published in major magazines; including Readers Digest and Guideposts. After retirement, when the author was sure that his family wouldnt starve, he began to write novels. Dragons Die at Dawn published in 2000 was followed by Porters Quest in 2006. As in previous novels, the setting and characters for There is a Way are real. The rest is fiction.view less