Frank Watson

Frank has always been a writer. He acted out stories with his friends before he could read. These were primarily variations of old black and white television westerns such as Roy Rogers and The Lone Ranger. As he got older, these stories morphed into more original, lengthy, and complex stories with better-developed characters. Once the story lasted all summer! He and his friends started each morning where they left off the night before.

He wrote his first story in second grade, but didn’t really think about being a writer until he read a story he had written as an assignment to his fifth grade class.

“I called it Night of Terror,” Frank recalls. “It was about a fifth grade boy who finds a friend dead during an overnight stay and is then tormented by ghosts and demons. After a long night of terror, the boys wake to find it was only a dream. When I finished reading, I looked up to find the class sitting spellbound. They clapped when I was done. That’s when I knew I was hooked.”

Frank has managed to spend much of his adult life involved in some type of writing--primarily journalism, technical writing, and business writing--but he never lost his love for fiction. Even while working as a newspaper reporter, editor, and corporate writer, he wrote fiction--short stories published in “little” literary magazines, followed by short stories in commercial magazines and, ultimately, novels.

Frank tried his hand at science fiction and started a western novel--more for enjoyment than as a serious direction in his writing. As part of his work toward a Writing Certificate at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, Frank had the opportunity to work with a published novelist on the university staff.

“We tossed around several potential projects, including my unfinished western,” Frank says. “We decided to work on the western because it sounded like fun. As I wrote, I realized that many of the experiences in my life, such as the summers I spent in rural Southeast Missouri with my grandparents, had prepared me for this kind of story. With westerns, I was able to explore my interest in history, character, story and myth--and myself.”

Frank subsequently published A Cold, Dark Trail and The Homecoming of Billy Buchanan with Fawcett/​Random House under his own name and other historical novels for Zebra, which he wrote under a pseudonym.

The Homecoming of Billy Buchanan has been republished and is now available.

Frank has not limited himself to westerns. A children’s book has won First Place in a regional writing competition and a literary short story, Where the Yellow Flowers Grow, won the Graduate Fiction Prize from the University of Missouri-St. Louis and was subsequently published in Mysteries of the Ozarks, Volume 1 from Skyward Publications.

He has taught writing with Writer’s Digest Schools and at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Frank now teaches at an urban school in St. Louis, MO. He has also presented at professional and writing conferences.

Frank currently lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his wife, Deborah Aldrich-Watson, and their two sons, Jonathan and Matthew. He has one daughter, Jennifer Watson, who is planning to start graduate studies in early child development in Chicago.

Frank has started a blog on this web site that includes, but is not limited to, writing, westerns, western history and culture. He has cleverly titled it Frank-ly Speaking. Click on the "Blog" link on the main menu, above, and take a look! And, of course, leave your comments!