Larry Wood Bio

Mr. Larry E. Wood is a retired public school teacher and a freelance writer specializing in the history of the Ozarks and surrounding regions. He has published fifteen nonfiction history books, two historical novels, and over four hundred magazine stories and articles in publications ranging from popular magazines like Wild West Magazine to scholarly journals like Missouri Historical Review. His books include:

• Ozarks Gun fights and Other Notorious Incidents
• Desperadoes of the Ozarks
• Bushwhacker Belles
• The Civil War Story of Bloody Bill Anderson
• The Siege of Lexington: The Battle of the Hemp Bales
• Civil War Springfield
• The Two Civil War Battles of Newtonia
• The Civil War on the Lower Kansas-Missouri
• Border
• Other Noted Guerrillas of the Civil War in Missouri

Mr. Wood has won numerous writing awards from organizations like the Missouri Writers’ Guild and the Ozark Writers’ League. The Two Civil War Battles of Newtonia won the Walter Williams Award in 2011, given by the Missouri Writers’ Guild for best major work, and Wood has also won the same organization’s Best Book about Missouri award four times. In 2016, he was named an honorary lifetime member of the Missouri Writers’ Guild. Wood is a former staff writer for Show Me the Ozarks Magazine, and he maintains a blog on Ozarks history at www.ozarks-history.blogspot.com. He and his wife live in Joplin MO.