Author Bio

Lori Van Pelt is an award-winning poet, nonfiction and fiction writer. She began writing in high school and was fortunate to have an excellent and encouraging English teacher at Banner County High School who championed her work, Beverley Edens. Mrs. Edens sent one of Lori’s poems to the National Poetry Press without telling her. One day, she came to class, opened a book, and read Lori’s poem aloud. Mrs. Edens continues to support her former student’s efforts and remains one of Lori’s dearest friends.

Lori was raised in Banner County, Nebraska. She is the daughter of the late Carl W. “Bud” and Irene Van Pelt. She graduated from Nebraska Western College in Scottsbluff, Nebraska in 1981 with an Associate degree in business. She worked in her hometown bank, the Banner County Bank, in Harrisburg, Nebraska for about a decade, beginning as receptionist and becoming the first person to earn the title of Assistant Vice President there. Her father died in 1983. After her mother’s death in 1988, Lori left the family wheat farm/cattle ranch where she was raised, moving to Scottsbluff, where she worked at the First State Bank.

In 1990, Lori moved to Laramie, Wyoming to complete her college education. She earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Finance with honors from the University of Wyoming in 1993. While she attended the university, she wrote a number of articles for the AlumNews. She met her husband-to-be, Eugene Walck, Jr., in Laramie. The couple were married in 1993, and Lori moved to Saratoga, Wyoming, and worked as a staff writer for the Saratoga Sun.

She became a full-time freelancer in 1994. She is the author of Amelia Earhart: The Sky’s No Limit (Forge, American Heroes series, 2005), named to the New York Public Library’s “Best Books for the Teen Age 2006” list and recently re-released in trade paperback. She is also the author of the Wyoming-based Dreamers and Schemers historical nonfiction series published by High Plains Press. Her award-winning nonfiction articles have appeared in a variety of national and regional publications, including the WREN (Wyoming Rural Electric News), WWA’s Roundup, True West, and Aviation History.

Her short fiction has been published in a number of national anthologies, and the lead story in her own collection, Pecker’s Revenge and Other Stories from the Frontier’s Edge (University of New Mexico Press, 2005) won the Western Writers of America Spur Award for Best Short Fiction in 2006. Her short story, “The Wild-Eyed Witness,” published in the anthology Lost Trails (Pinnacle, 2007), earned recognition as a Spur Finalist for Best Short Fiction in 2008. Her short story, “River Watch,” first published in the anthology, American West, edited by Loren D. Estleman (Forge, 2001) and later in Lori’s own collectio n, was one of eight contemporary westerns selected from a field of 100 for the Great Writers Series, sponsored by The Met Theatre, the Autry Museum, and Word Theater. Actress Wendie Malick read Lori’s tale for the event held in Los Angeles in June 2004 at the Autry Museum.

Both Lori and her husband, Eugene, will be featured in the upcoming television documentary series, Cowboys and Outlaws, airing on The History Channel in late November, 2009. They demonstrate how cattle are cared for in the present day, and Lori discusses the severe winter of 1886-1887, also known as “The Great Die-Off,” and the hanging of Cattle Kate for cattle rustling in Wyoming Territory. Filming for this episode took place on the Walck Ranch, their cattle ranch near Saratoga, Wyoming.

In addition, Lori is a recipient of a 2010 Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry from the Wyoming Arts Council. She is an active member of WWA. Lori loves to sing and often performs locally both as a soloist and in concert with the Saratoga Community Choir. She also plays the flute, perfoming classical music in duet with her friend, trombonist Robby Follum of Saratoga, Wyoming.