Connie A. Walker’s interest in fantasy developed before she started grade school. Her sister, June, who was five years older, practiced her reading skills by reading to Connie. June introduced her to The Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, The Arabian Nights, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and hundreds of fairy tales. Connie fell asleep every night with visions of elves and ogres, sorcerers and enchanted lands, flitting through her mind.
When her sister started junior high school, the reading sessions dwindled to a few times a week. Suddenly Connie had difficulty sleeping. She began having nightmares. She dreaded going to bed.
One night, when Connie was very tired and having difficulty falling asleep, she pretended that June was reading her favorite story to her. She drifted off to sleep and had pleasant dreams. After that, when she went to bed, she reviewed other tales she had heard, often embellishing the action and adding characters.
Within a short while, she was making up stories of her own. That was when she decided to become a writer.
When Connie was seven years old, she won an annual writing contest sponsored by her elementary school. Students in first, second and third grades were eligible to enter. She was the first first-grader ever to win. Her story, “Stop, Look, and Listen,” was about a dog who acted as a crossing guard.
Throughout elementary and high school, Connie made her homework assignments enjoyable by being creative. When doing research papers, she presented the facts within a fictional frame story or a play. Essays were often written as satires, ending with unexpected twists. Connie considered everything she wrote as a prelude to a career as an author.
While getting her Bachelor of Arts degree in theatre at Brigham Young University, she had four original plays produced: a one act comedy and a two act drama (both of which were contest winners), plus two musicals. Later, she had two other one act comedies produced. After graduation, she worked as a technical writer, a graphic artist, and a public relations specialist. In the evenings, she wrote short stories, plays, poetry, and outlined ideas for fantasy novels. She filled a filing cabinet with unpublished manuscripts. A single mother of two, Connie often found her writing time shunted aside by such things as chicken pox, science projects, strep throat, baseball games, stomach flu, and school activities—all those things associated with parenting.
In the meantime, she had to make a living.
As her children entered the teenage years, financial demands increased, and Connie felt the need to develop a career that provided a predictable and adequate income. She attended the University of Utah and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology and a Master’s degree in social work. She has been employed as a foster care caseworker, a psychotherapist, and a clinical programs manager.
Now retired, she finally has enough uninterrupted time to write professionally. Her children’s book, Timmy and the K’nick K’nocker Ring, is a fantasy about a young boy who is transported to a world where his special talents are considered magic. It took first place in a local writer’s contest, Children’s Literature category, and was the grand prize winner as well.
The Spire of Kylet, a young adult fantasy, is the first book in The Wolkarean Inscription Trilogy. Katrine is a fifteen year old girl who thinks she has her life all planned out. But, after performing an act of heroisn, she is adopted into a tribe of wizards and receives their powers. Suddenly, she is thrust on a path toward a new destiny whether she likes it or not. The second and third books in the trilogy, The Eyes of Landor and Triumph at Serpent’s Head, are now available.
Connie is currently working on a second Wolkarean trilogy.
Her books are available through Amazon.com in paperback and kindle version.
