The Write Stuff

Award-winning author wasn’t born in Wylie, but she got here as fast as she could!

By Judy Truesdell

Tracy 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.

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 in the project, and also published a companion book, “Pride of the Valley: Sifting Through the History of the Mount Healthy Mill,” in 2017.

Tracy’s latest book, “Answering Liberty’s Call”, is her first historical fiction work. It’s the story of her six-timesgreat-grandmother on her dad’s father side, Anna Stone, who gets involved in the fight for liberty, despite being told that war is “men’s business.” When her soldier husband and brothers face starvation at Valley Forge, Anna strikes out alone on horseback, traveling over 200 miles on rough roads to bring them supplies. During this weeklong journey, Anna overcomes frigid weather, hazardous river crossings, and threats from highway robbers and enemy soldiers. She can’t even risk stopping in a tavern for a meal for fear she will be mistaken for a prostitute.

“We rarely see books about war from a woman’s perspective,” Tracy said. “Even when we do, it is usually the view from the home front. In ‘Answering Liberty’s Call,’ Anna travels into the action – not into battle, but into conflict, as she confronts some of the lesser-known issues and problems faced by Americans during the war.”

Tracy explained that though all authors conduct research, the final product is presented differently. Fiction writers use information gleaned from research to create realistic but made-up situations and characters, and nonfiction writing is more like news reporting.

“Answering Liberty’s Call” is, she notes, the best of both worlds. She was able to dig into her own family’s genealogy as well as general research of the time period to create the exciting tale. The premise for the story is true; family legend has it that Anna’s husband left her and their young children with relatives when he enlisted. When she heard about the dire circumstances at Valley Forge, she decided to bring them food and supplies. Along the way, a congressman asked her to carry a message to George Washington, and she became involved in patriotic intrigue.

In addition to her ancestors’ written words and family lore, Tracy’s sources included other historical novels, letters written by soldiers, and accounts of the winter at Valley Forge, including George Washington’s Orderly Book, a day journal of happenings at the camp. She used lunar calendars to help her know whether Anna would have had moonlight to guide her on her nighttime travels. Maps drawn in the 1770s assured her that she wouldn’t send Anna off on roads that didn’t exist at the time, and excerpts from a sermon on marriage in the early 1800s provided the preacher’s remarks at a wedding – between two characters who shall remain nameless to avoid providing a plot spoiler.

Two scenes in “Answering Liberty’s Call” were inspired directly by entries in her ancestor Henry Rogers’ journal. One is in the opening chapter when Anna searches for her soldier brothers in a church serving as a makeshift hospital. Henry had mentioned a small cemetery in Chester County, Pa., with a monument to 22 soldiers of the Revolution who died of fever in the winter of 1778.

Bob and Tracy Lawson on the porch of their Victorian home in Wylie.

Photos by Ethan Good

Tracy said she realized Anna would pass the cemetery and site of the church on her way to Valley Forge.

She also drew a tavern brawl scene from the journal. “It was my husband’s favorite moment from Henry’s account of his trip, and it was fun to re-imagine Anna being present for a similar disturbance,” Tracy said.

Tracy has another book coming out in January: “The Red Thread,” co-authored with Rebekah Pace. It is also historical fiction, but with elements of magical realism. It was inspired by the Chinese legend, “The Red Thread of Fate.”

Young Adult Dystopian Tales

Tracy has also been successful at writing full-out fiction. Her award-winning futuristic Resistance Series, a young adult saga that includes “Counteract,” “Resist,” “Ignite,” and “Revolt,” plus the prequel, “Collide,” involves teens struggling to survive after a terrorist gas strike. Tommy Bailey, age 18, has only one remaining dose of a government-mandated antidote, which he shares with Careen Catecher, a young woman he just met. The two discover that the attack wasn’t real, and the antidote was meant to dull their thoughts and make them easy to control, rather than to protect them. Tommy learns that his parents were operatives in an underground resistance group fighting to overthrow the government, and he’s expected to continue their crusade.

Keep Up with Tracy

Tracy Lawson is a valuable addition to the Collin County family, and will no doubt continue providing unique peeks into history, creating new worlds to be explored, and introducing us to inspirational characters. All her books are (or will be) available on Amazon in multiple formats, and her social media links are: tracylawsonbooks.com, Facebook.com/TracyLawsonAuthor and twitter.com/tracyslawson. •