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Laura DiSilverio
Pseudonym for Ella Barrick.
My life began, from a writing perspective, when I went to
college. That’s not to say I didn’t write
stories before then. I did. I’ve always written and,
in my elementary years, illustrated stories. My tales
always featured horses and princesses I could render with
flowing manes of hair. Anyway, when I say my writing life
didn’t begin until college, that’s because my
home life was so overwhelmingly normal and angst-free: no
family divorces, no abuse, no felons, no deaths, no drugs or
alcohol, no shop-lifting or sex parties to win peer
approval. (Have you heard what 12-year-olds are up to
today? I shudder.) My father was an Air Force pilot and
we moved a lot, living in Georgia, Texas, Washington, the
Philippines, and Oklahoma before I was out of high-school,
but I liked the peripatetic lifestyle.
I wrote my first novel for a creative writing class at
Trinity University. Professor Bob Flynn inspired me and
heroically refrained from gagging when reading the
contemporary romance I titled “Jeweled Torment.”
That manuscript is buried in a box in the garage, along
with the Regency romance I wrote shortly after joining the
Air Force. I concentrated on becoming a good intelligence
officer for many years before doing any more significant
writing. I served with an F-16 wing in Korea, helped
resolve reports of live-sightings of Vietnam prisoners of
war while working out of the embassy in Bangkok, pushed
paper at the Defense Intelligence Agency, earned my
Master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania,
taught English for three years at the Air Force Academy,
learned cool things about satellites (none of which I can
ever write about) at the National Reconnaissance Office,
attended various professional schools, did my time in the
Pentagon, commanded a squadron in England, and ended up in
Colorado. Along the way, I married my wonderful husband and
produced two beautiful children who re-defined what is
important in life. A moment of Holy Spirit-guided epiphany
in Elliot’s Bay bookstore in Seattle convinced me it
was time to embark on writing and mothering full time. I
retired from the Air Force in late 2004.
My motto? Never, never, never, give up. I’m also
fond of the saying that sits on my desk beneath a photo of a
sailboat on the sea: “You cannot discover new worlds
unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
I discover new worlds all the time in my writing and I give
thanks every day for being able to pursue my passion.
Books:
 Malled to Death, April 2013
All Sales Fatal, May 2012
Die Buying, August 2011
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