Louella grew up in Falls Church, Virginia, and attended George Washington University in Washington, D.C.  After graduate school at GWU, she moved to Vermont and taught high school English in Jericho for twenty-five years. During that time she had a son, Bryant, and acquired a stepson, Will. She was a free-lance writer for The Burlington Free Press for several years before she wrote her first novel, The Black Bonnet, which was a finalist for the Vermont Book Award.  Next came Silver Bay Children's Literature Award winner, Father By Blood, a story about John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry that some say started the Civil War.  She now teaches writing courses at the University of Vermont and Castleton State College as well as Spalding University in Kentucky. She is on the Board of Trustees of the Lincoln Library and talks frequently to school children about writing.

Louella at 14 in Virginia

with bovine friends

Louella’s short stories have won the Ralph Nading Hill Award, the Kingdom Award, and Writers in the Park, Raymond Carver and Writer’s Digest awards for short fiction. Her fiction and poems have appeared in Hunger Mountain, Vermont Life, Fine Print, Mobius, Carve, The Teacher’s Voice and the anthologies Cadence of Hooves (Yarroway Mountain Press), High Horse (Fleur de Lis Press) and Tartts 2 (Livingston Press).  Her essays are included in the anthology Far From Home (Seal Press) and the magazine Sacred Fire. She also has published numerous newspaper and magazine articles. Her nonfiction book While in Darkness There is Light (Black Lawrence Press) is set during the Vietnam War era.  Currently Louella has young adult and nonfiction books in the works. She teaches creative writing at University of Vermont, Castleton State College, and New England Young Writers Conference at Bread Loaf. She holds a BA degree from George Washington University and an MFA in Writing from Vermont College. Louella has won artist residency fellowships from the Julia and David White Artists’ Colony in Costa Rica and the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont. She serves on the faculty of the Spalding University MFA in Writing Program in Louisville, KY.

Louella in fourth grade       

For a complete list of stories, go to Other Publications.

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