About the Authors
Lawrence and Suella Walsh are freelance writers, writing teachers, consulting editors and publishers. They are frequent contributors to Writers' Journal Magazine and are Consulting Editors for Goldminds Publishing.
Lawrence is a former chemist who wrote technical procedures for Bayer Corporation, and Suella is a former school teacher. Both now work as full-time freelance writers and writing teachers. Lawrence and Suella studied writing for five summers, taking part in the Short Courses for Professional Writers, under the tutelage of Jack Bickham and Dwight Swain at the University of Oklahoma. They received an A in the novel class for their mystery novel, The Last O’Neil. They also took writing classes at Avila College and were fortunate to learn children’s writing at the hand of Kansas City’s own children’s author, Wilma Yeo.
They teach writing classes at Johnson County Community college, Maple Woods College, and for the Kansas City Writers Group. Their book, Creating Fiction That Sells, A Compilation of Published Magazine Articles, is used as the text for their classes. They have been hired by the Mid-Continent Public Libraries to present writing programs in their 30 local libraries. They have taught more than 50 writing workshops for elementary schools in Kansas and Missouri and have done presentations for thirteen writers’ conferences.
They have sold ten books. The Case of Erica’s Weird Behavior, They Would Never Be Friends, Running Scared and Through A Dark Tunnel are novels published by the national children’s publisher, Royal Fireworks Publishing Company, in New York. Royal Fireworks has accepted a fifth book, In The Middle Of The Night, for future publication. The Unicorn and Other Children's Stories and Viewpoint in Fiction were published by Potpourri Publications. Their adult novels, The Last O'Neil and Inherit The Land are currently available in book stores and on Amazon.com.
Lawrence and Suella are the founding editors for Red Herring Mystery Magazine and Kansas City Voices Magazine and for two years they wrote a column, “Writing Mystery Fiction”, for Mystery Forum Magazine. Additionally, they have sold more than seventy short stories and articles to such magazines as Byline, Writers’ Journal, Buffalo Spree, Missouri Magazine, Missouri Life, Good Old Days, The Friend, Highlights for Children… Their fiction appears in the anthologies, Beginning From the Middle, Handprint in the Woods and The Season of Light, published by Whispering Prairie Press and Well Versed. Personal essays appear in Chocolate For A Teen’s Soul published by Simon and Schuster and Sacred Stones published by Adams Media.
The Walshes trust that when a writer reaches deep inside and tells the story only he or she can tell, the creativity of that first draft will be there. It’s the techniques with which to rewrite, hone and layer the writing that can be learned.