Lonnie Whitaker attended a two-room school in the Missouri Ozarks and later earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Missouri School of Law. He served as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney and retired as district counsel for a federal agency and now works as a writer.
His novels, Geese to a Poor Market and Soda Fountain Blues, both won the Ozark Writers’ League Best Book of the Year Award.
He is the author of an award-winning children’s book series about Mulligan, a rescued tomcat, with starts with Mulligan Meets the Poodlums. It was published November 2017 and has a perfect 5.0 Amazon.com review rating.
His stories have appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul, Missouri Life, The Ozark Mountaineer, Echoes of the Ozarks, Cuivre River Anthology, and he has received awards in nationally advertised fiction contests. His newspaper column, “The Way We Were . . . Personal Reflections on Life in the Ozarks” was published bi-weekly by the Howell County News, and has won multiple awards from the Missouri Writers Guild.
He served as an editor for Peculiar Pilgrims: Stories from the Left Hand of God, (Hourglass Books, 2007), and as the literary fiction editor for High Hill Press (2012-2017) He was awarded the 2005 Starr Fellowship at the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow. His short story, “A Story Finally Told” was published in Mysteries of the Ozarks Volume V, October 2017.
He and his wife live in Missouri with two dogs and a rescued tomcat. They are supporters of animal rescue organizations.