Mystery Ink.: Murder Times Two

L.S. Walsh

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. 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.