Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Barbara Walsh Skypes into book clubs and classrooms around the world. Please contact her at bwalshauthor@gmail.comA few words about Barbara's background:Like many writers, I was a shy kid. My mother claims I never spoke a word until high school. I preferred writing to talking. I penned poetry and 12-page letters to my relatives (who thought I had way too much time on my hands). I wrote Stephen King-like stories about my sister's stuffed animals coming to life -- stories that made them think I was deranged.Regardless of my sisters' opinions, my high school teachers suggested I pursue a journalism degree. Several years later on my first daily newspaper job, I was assigned a story that would change my life and career.I was 27 and a rookie at the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune when I began investigating prison escapee Willlie Horton Jr. and Massachusetts' flawed furlough program.Horton was a first-degree killer who escaped while out on a weekend pass from Walpole, Massachusetts' top security prison. It turned out that many killers and rapists were getting furloughed on the weekend -- unsupervised. Ultimately, the investigation into the prison program changed lives, laws, affected the 1988 presidential election and earned our newspaper a Pulitzer Prize.The Horton story also taught me that journalists have tremendous power and responsibility to inform, to tell stories that need to be told.Like the stories I reported during my journalism career, my two books ─ Sammy in the Sky and August Gale: A Father and Daughter's Journey into the Storm ─ are true and they are stories that I was compelled to write.When I am not agonizing over words or deadlines, I can be found by the water, swimming, kayaking or just staring at the blue-green waves.