Delia Owens

Delia and Mark Owens are divorced. For many years, Delia lived in Boundary County, Idaho which is twenty miles from Canada. However in 2019–2020, she moved to a former horse farm near Asheville, North Carolina.

Her debut novel, Where the Crawdads Sing, was released in 2018. It became one of the best-selling books of all time. It was adapted into a 2022 film of the same name.

She released her debut novel, Where the Crawdads Sing, in 2018, which topped The New York Times Fiction Best Sellers of 2019 and The New York Times Fiction Best Sellers of 2020 for 32 non-consecutive weeks and was on the list for 135 weeks in total. It also gave rise to a successful feature film.

Owens' former husband, Mark, has been accused of operating a "shoot to kill" policy against poachers while the couple were living in Zambia. ABC News aired a report in 1996, entitled "Deadly Game: The Mark and Delia Owens Story". The report featured the killing of a poacher in Zambia, allegedly committed by Delia's stepson, Christopher. To this day, Delia Owens denies the incident, explaining she was not involved, and there was never a case. However, her 2018 best selling novel, Where the Crawdads Sing, has aroused suspicion from those on her book tour about the parallels between the main character Kya and her case, and Delia's own alleged accusation. In the year 2022, Reese Witherspoon has taken movie rights for her production company to bring the novel to the screen. After the movie was released in July 2022, Zambia confirmed the murder case was still open and Delia, Christopher, and Mark Owens were still wanted in Zambia for questioning. The Owenses have denied the accusations. No charges were brought against Owens or her ex-husband Mark, or stepson Christopher. Zambian officials told Jeffery Goldberg, a journalist and editor-in-chief of The Atlantic Magazine, that they don't believe Owens is a suspect. However, they do believe that she is the most important witness.

The couple moved to Africa in 1974, travelling for some time before making camp in the Kalahari Desert, Botswana. Cry of the Kalahari was written about the couple's experience there. After they campaigned against the local cattle industry, Botswanan government officials expelled them from the country. The Owenses then settled in North Luangwa National Park, Zambia, and later in Mpika, Zambia in the early 1990s.

Owens met Mark Owens in a protozoology class at the University of Georgia when they were both graduate students studying biology. They married in 1973, and in 1974 moved to South Africa to study animals in the Kalahari Desert and Zambia. She wrote about Africa in her memoirs Cry of the Kalahari, The Eye of the Elephant, and Secrets of the Savanna. The couple were expelled from Botswana and are wanted for questioning in Zambia in relation to a murder investigation. They are no longer married. Since returning to the United States, Delia Owens has been involved in bear conservation.

Delia Owens (born c. 1949) is an American author, zoologist, and conservationist. She is best known for her 2018 novel Where the Crawdads Sing.