I am a freelance writer of novels, essays, and screenplays and a teacher of writing and contemporary literature. I live in the hills of northern Vermont.

I earned an MFA in Fiction from the University of California at Irvine and an AB in English Composition from Syracuse University. I have been a Wallace Stegner Fellow in fiction at Stanford University, and I've been awarded grants for my fiction by the Vermont Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

My first novel, HARD FEELINGS (Atheneum, 1977), was an American Library Association Best Book in 1977 and a 20th Century-Fox film release in 1982. My published work includes four other novels, MULDOON (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1982), and my Hector Bellevance mystery/suspense trilogy, COLD COMFORT (Harmony Books, 2001), THE FIFTH SEASON (Three Rivers Press, 2005), and THE ERRAND BOY (Three Rivers Press, 2009).



My new novel, an edgy young adult fantasy called POLLY AND THE ONE AND ONLY WORLD, will be released in October by Green Writers Press. 

Those who may be interested in my writing may visit my Web site, my Don Bredes page on Facebook, or my Author's Page at Amazon.

I've published short stories, essays, and book reviews in a variety of publications, including "The New York Times Sunday Magazine," "The Los Angeles Times Book Review," and "Paris Review."

Two of my screenplay adaptations have been independently produced and released internationally as feature-length films, "Where the Rivers Flow North," starring Rip Torn and Michael J. Fox, and "A Stranger in the Kingdom," with an ensemble cast including Ernie Hudson and Martin Sheen. They're available on DVD.

When I'm not writing or teaching, I like to cook, garden (mostly vegetables), read, play tennis, hike, birdwatch, fly kites, look at the stars and galaxies, fish for trout, ride my mountain bike, snowshoe, and cross-country ski, as the seasons permit.