About the Author, Bob O'Connor

Here’s a little background on me.

I live in Charles Town, West Virginia, close to most of the sites of these books. I am a well-respected member of the travel industry, having worked in various tourism offices and Convention and Visitors Bureaus since 1974. I was a Board member for T.I.A., their national awards chairman, and am only one of two persons in West Virginia to be a Certified Travel Planner. I have also been a life long journalist and photographer.

My writing goes back to my 8th grade teacher, Mrs. Weinreich, at Washington School in Dixon, Illinois. I remember diagramming sentences in her class every day and wondering why the heck we were doing that. She sent my writings to the Illinois Historical Society Journal and I had my first published article. That was 1959.

I have worked full time for a newspaper, part time as a newspaper reporter, at various jobs many that required writing press releases, news articles, or reports.

About two thousand published articles later, and here I am, trying something bigger in scope - writing a book.

In the interim I have become very interested in history, more through my jobs than through anything in school.

While director of Tourism in Washington County, Maryland, I became involved in touring local places like Antietam Battlefield and Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. I was hooked. My staff thought I was an expert, but really I knew just enough to get by. The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn.

Along the way I was privileged to work with Superintendent Rich Rambur, and he allowed me to start two marvelous events at the Antietam Battlefield that are still going strong. They are the Independence Concert at Antietam Battlefield in July and the Memorial Illumination at Antietam Battlefield in December. Fortunately for me and the community, Rich was an “out of the box thinker” and didn’t get the government manual out and just say “those things aren’t allowed in National Parks.”

I have always collected books on two historical characters — John Wilkes Booth and John Brown. Imagine my surprise when I ended up living in Charles Town, West Virginia — a place they both had visited in late 1859. Thus, the inspiration for the first novel “The Perfect Steel Trap Harpers Ferry 1859”. The book has been named a Finalist in the 2006 Best Book Awards by USA Book News.

The inspiration for my second novel “The Virginian Who Might Have Saved Lincoln” was the intrigue of finding a man, Ward Hill Lamon, who was so close to Abraham Lincoln, yet most people I talked to had never heard about him. In fact, he is mentioned in most non-fiction books about Lincoln (there are 44,781 listed on Amazon.com), but no book has ever been written about him. I think it is my charge to bring his name to light.

I graduated from Dixon High School in Dixon, Illinois and have a Biology degree (go figure) from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois.

I live close to my son, Craig, and my daughter, Kelli, and my five grand children to whom the first book is dedicated.

Besides writing, I work part time for both the Jefferson County CVB and the City of Charles Town. I also do volunteer work for Harper s Ferry National Historical Park and write for several local and regional publications.

My next book is called "A House Divided Against Itself" and is about William and Wesley Culp. Both were from Gettysburg, PA. William joined the Union army, but Wesley joined the Confederate Army. They encountered each other on the battlefield at Second Winchester. Look for the book to be published in Spring of 2009.