Old Crump The True Story of a Trip West

Laurie Lawlor grew up in a family enamored with the theater. Along with her five brothers and sisters she spent summers in a summer stock repertory company in a small mountain town in Colorado that was run by their mother (costumer, cook, accountant, and resident psychiatrist) and their father (artistic director). Coming from a theatrical family with a highly developed imagination gave Lawlor some advantages. She soon learned that if she wanted some peace and quiet, she could simply invent terrifying stories bout characters who happened to inhabit the family's home. In this way Lawlor was able to convince her gullible younger brothers and sisters to stay out of the attic or suffer the wrath of Evil Pan. In this clever way Lawlor acquired her first studio. There she was able to write and read and "nobody," she says, "dared bother me." It was when Lawlor was in about the third grade that she decided to become a writer. That was when she made the amazing discovery that she did not have to tell these scary stories over and over again. She could simply write them down. Her best friend in third grade, who was an excellent artist, illustrated the books she wrote. They had such a good time creating the books that they decided to work together, making books, when they grew up. Unfortunately, Laurie's friend became a dental hygienist, Laurie, however, trained as a journalist and then went on to write books.Laurie worked on the high school newspaper and eventually went to journalism school at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She worked for many years as a freelance writer and editor before devoting herself on a more full-time basis to the creation of fiction and nonfiction for children and young adults. She teaches writing workshops to elementary and junior high school students throughout the country as an artist-in-residence. She is a part-time faculty member of Chicago's Columbia College, where she teaches writing to undergraduates and graduates students, and facilitates teacher workshops.More than thirty of her books have been published and more are forthcoming. Her books have received numerous nominations for state awards. Laurie Lawlor lives in Evanston, Illinois with her husband, Labrador retriever, two parakeets, and a very ancient goldfish. Her two children are grown.Lawlor, Laurie is the author of 'Old Crump The True Story of a Trip West', published 2002 under ISBN 9780823416080 and ISBN 0823416089.