In 2008—determined to cleanse the chaos in her mind by laughing at it—Donna Debs began writing the humor column “Upside Down” for several Philadelphia-area newspapers, including the Daily Local News and the Times Herald. Wash Your Brain is her first story collection. The book won Gold in the Independent Book Publishers Association’s 2025 Book-of-the-Year contest, and Silver in the Readers’ Favorite 2025 Book-of-the-Year contest. She was also named Humor Writer of the Month in June 2025, by the Erma Bombeck Humor Writers’ Workshop.
Donna is also a former news reporter and editor for Philadelphia’s KYW Radio, and, for twenty-five years, she owned a writing/communications company, working with major corporate and nonprofit clients. If you peek into her window—but please don’t!—you may find Donna upside down in a headstand or handstand, trying to wash her brain that way, too. Since the late 1990s, she has doubled as an Iyengar yoga teacher with an active yoga studio.
“. . . (Wash Your Brain’s) unusual blend of jolly information represents a sterling example of how effective literary humor works.”
—-Diane Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review
“ ‘If you can’t make it better, you can laugh at it,’ Erma Bombeck wrote. Donna Debs has taken that advice to heart. It’s just the break we need from the insanity of modern life.”
