The Write S T
racy Lawson, author of 10 books, including nonfiction, historical fiction, and young adult dystopian thrillers, says her spidey senses went into overdrive when she spied the yellow Victorian house at 405 N. Ballard for sale. “I’m so glad I took a break from writing to surf Zillow that afternoon!” she said. The Lawsons moved to Wylie in October but had become acquainted with Wylie’s welcoming spirit and the charming downtown area when Tracy participated in Bluegrass on Ballard as a vendor. “With appropriate caution, we’ve been trying the restaurants and checking out the shops,” she said. “My husband is a big fan of Soft Serve Sundays at OMG Creamery.” Her books have won numerous awards, and, whatever the genre, they all feature characters who are in pursuit of personal liberty. Her latest work, “Answering Liberty’s Call,” (available in January 2021) is based on family legend and events in the lives of Anna and Benjamin Stone, her great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents (yes, that’s six “greats”) during the American Revolution.
Early Days
Tracy was a dancer before she was a writer. An Ohio native, she began taking tap and ballet lessons when she was five and studied dance through high school, performing with the drill team and in school productions. She met her husband Bob in high school. (He was in Spanish class with one of Tracy’s friends, who invited him to eat lunch with them.) Following high school courtship and graduating from Ohio University, they were married. “My dance and theater career began when my husband, fresh out of grad school, took his first teaching job at Shawnee State University in a small Ohio town,” Tracy said. “With limited employment opportunities, I started teaching dance classes at a local studio.” She soon opened her own studio in a neighboring town, and, although she left that endeavor behind when she and Bob moved to Columbus, Ohio, in 1996, she treasured the opportunity to be a positive force in her students’ lives and maintains contact with many of them to this day. She carried her passion for influencing young people to pursue their goals with her; “Stay Motivated and Write,” a guide for teens, is available on her website. 8 • The CONNECTION • December 2020/January 2021
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Once in Columbus, Tracy continued to teach dance, and developed the curriculum for the tap dance program at BalletMet. When the Lawsons’ daughter Keri, now a Ph.D. candidate at West Virginia University, was in sixth grade, she auditioned for her middle school musical, and Tracy offered to choreograph the show. The director jumped at the chance. Tracy signed on as the school district’s choreographer and went on to choreograph some 30 productions in Ohio. Keri stayed active in the school theater program through high school, performing in musicals, working stage crew, and serving as a mentor for younger students. Tracy returns to Columbus several times a year for auditions, choreography “boot camp,” and shows.
Texas Bound
The Lawsons moved to North Texas in 2011 when Bob joined the faculty at Southern Methodist University, teaching economics in the MBA program and running the Bridwell Institute for Global Freedom. “We’ve always owned older homes, and after living happily on M Streets and Junius Heights in Old East Dallas, we were casually looking for a historic property. We fell in love with the house in Wylie.”
Stories to Share
It was the move to Texas that prompted Tracy to adopt the “have laptop, will travel” plan, leaving her dance studio schedule and trying her hand at a long-time goal to write. Her first book, “Fips, Bots, Doggeries, and More,” published in 2012, is based on the 1838 travel journal of Henry Rogers, her great-great-great-grandfather on her dad’s mother’s side. Henry and his father-in-law, Jediah Hill, ran a mill in Mount Healthy, a town near Cincinnati. In 1838, the family traveled east, visiting other mills to get ideas about how to improve their own. Henry kept a journal as he traveled, writing about such events as his first time on a mountaintop, witnessing a tavern brawl, doctoring a sick horse, falling asleep in church, going on board a ship that was under construction in the Philadelphia Navy Yard, and seeing “newfangled railroads” operating in the eastern states. McDonald & Woodward Publishing expressed interest continued ~
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