LOUISE GAYLORD is a natural storyteller, whose life, like her mystery stories, has been full of surprises. She discovered her love of storytelling during her days at Saint Mary’s Hall, an Episcopal girls’ boarding school in San Antonio, Texas. Classmates gathered round as she read her stories and ended up in tears by, “ ...and they lived happily (or not so happily) ever after.” But it was painting, not writing, that her teachers encouraged, so her writing was put on hold.

Louise studied art history and sociology at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, and later at The University of Houston where she met and married Ted Gaylord, a promising entrepreneur from Upstate New York.

Though her grandfather was one of the founding members of the Houston Symphony, opera was Louise’s real passion. After designing several covers for Opera Cues, the Houston Grand Opera Guild’s magazine, she took over the editorship, eventually becoming President of the Guild and later President of Opera Guilds International.

Louise was invited to join the Writers Consortium founded by Guida Jackson and Ida Luttrell . The group includes other published authors: Jackie Pelham, Patsy Ward Burk, Julia Gomez-Rivas, and Karen Stuyck, and has helped shape the writing career of Vanessa Leggett and other new talents.

With the nurturing guidance of the group, Louise’s short story repertoire rapidly grew: “It was like a door opened and, once I walked through, it was a new world.”

Louise has penned over 30 short stories, some of which have appeared in the Suddenly series. She has written several one act plays and one full-length play, “The Season,” which was produced by the Backdoor Theatre in Wichita Falls and later performed in Houston.

Louise’s three months of service on a Harris County, Texas, grand jury panel sparked the idea for the Allie Armington mystery series and, as they say, the rest is history.