Working With Words :: Author

Who is Laurie Wagner Buyer?

I am a poet and a writer.

I am a woman of the West.

I came West when I was twenty seeking love and a place to belong.

I worked hard for many years on remote homesteads and isolated ranches to learn about the West from men and women born to the land.

I lived in intimate association with the seasons, the weather, and the cycles of wild and domestic flora and fauna.

I am deeply connected to and continue to honor traditions of the West.

I seek solitude, silence and the still, small voice within when immersed in landscapes of the West.

I hope to share the secrets I’ve heard whispered on the wind and seen in the depths of rivers, lakes and streams.

I want to offer my knowledge of writing to others so that they may give their good gifts of experience back to the world.

When not on the road presenting workshops, poet and novelist Laurie Wagner Buyer divides her time between Woodland Park, Colorado, and Llano, Texas. Her newest release, Infinite Possibilities: A Haiku Journal.

Laurie has an MFA in Writing from Goddard College and is the author of three collections of poetry, Glass-Eyed Paint in the Rain (Poetry of the American West) , Red Colt Canyon and Across the High Divide, which won the Western Writers of America Spur Award in Poetry and was named a Willa Cather Literary Award Finalist.

Her first novel, Side Canyons, was released by Five Star Publishing in 2004. Laurie received the Beryl Markham Prize for Spring's Edge: A Ranch Wife's Chronicles , a memoir released in 2008 from the University of New Mexico Press, which became a finalist for the Colorado Book Award in 2009. A member of The National League of American Pen Women and Women Writing the West, Laurie's freelance articles and photographs have appeared in dozens of periodicals, journals, reviews, and anthologies.

TESTIMONIALS

“Laurie has the skill to take ordinary prose and turn it into something powerful, electrifying, and publishable. I have written sixty books, six of which have won awards, and would never consider submitting a manuscript without subjecting it to Laurie’s visionary editing.” - W.C. Jameson, author of Beating the Devil and Treasure Hunter: A True Story of Caches, Curses, and Deadly Confrontations

“Thank you for your edit and critique. Your help with my manuscript has been very beneficial to me. There is something powerful about the mixture of your editing skills, your spirit, your understanding of human nature, and your caring for people that comes across in your work with writers.” - Lynn Burlingham, Lawrence, Kansas

“I am still in awe of the Denver Women’s Press Club third place win. I still can’t believe it. I am honored and humbled by it all. I thank you deeply for all of your time and energy you have given me these past months. Without that, it would not have happened. That is the spark of a wonderful teacher and you have that. The teacher in you is natural and energetic; it shows and prospers very well. I thank you for your coaching in all that has come my way. I have always felt that a good teacher is a life coach and a guide. You have given me a plan and a focus, as well as the advice to improve my skills. I never had this before. I thank you. I will never give up.” --Nancy Jurka, Palmer Lake, Colorado

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TESTIMONIALS