My journey toward writing began when I was six years old and in first grade. I asked my teacher to call me “Laura,” rather than “Laurie,” because it sounded so much more elegant and fitting to a great author. As things went, my teacher never remembered; neither did my mother. So, alas, I became, once more, Laurie Marr.
The barn on the ranch where I grew up was the source of hours of imagination and play for my sisters, brother and I. I immortalized it in Clean Cut as the barn that Marguerite loves so much.
I had a magical childhood. We lived on my mother’s family ranch, which had been homesteaded in the 1870s, in Castle Rock, Colorado. At 2,100 acres, the ranch was the largest and best playground a child could want, and we took advantage of it. We were usually outside, and I found friends among the kittens born in the barn and the woodpile, or the steers in the corral, or the tadpoles in the puddle of water that we referred to as the Frog Pond. To this day, I tease my mother that she never knew where we were–a gift of freedom that few children have today.
I grew up through the 4-H system and was a People-to-People Ambassador to Europe and the (then) U.S.S,R. My college days were spent at the University of Denver, where I was lucky enough to go after receiving every kind of financial aid available to college students in the 1970s. After I graduated, I married my husband, Bill, and spent a couple of years in Minneapolis, where my husband worked for an airline. When we decided to move back to a gentler climate, I went bck to D.U. for a Master’s degree in English. After that, the years sped by as I taught at the college level, did freelance editing, worked with curriculum, and other part time jobs that allowed me to raise my two wonderful children, Trevor and Julie.
Throughout the years, I continued to write. A few of my short stories were published in college literary magazines in the early nineties, and I wrote a couple of historical articles for popular magazines. I was awarded a grant from the Rocky Mountain Women’s Institute in 1994 to write my novel, Clean Cut. By the time my children graduated from high school, I had written nearly five full novels.
In 2011, my ever-supportive husband challenged me to “do” something with my work. I had tried now and again to find an agent or publisher, but I’d never had much luck. So, in 2012, I kept my promise to my husband and started lost ranch books. I have never looked back!
Laurie Marr Wasmund 