User:Del Garrett/sandbox/Hall of Fame

The Pioneer Branch, National League of American Penwomen, held its 75th Annual Writers’ Conference, June 1, in North Little Rock. Each year, the Pioneer Branch inducts a noted Arkansas writer into its Hall of Fame. Previous inductees include Charles Portis (True Grit) and Dee Brown (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee). This year the honor went to a White County resident and long-time member of the Searcy-based White County Creative Writers group and the Penpoint Writers Group in Sherwood, Ark.. Del Garrett is a retired military journalist who currently writes novels, short stories and magazine features. He was born Sept. 7, 1946, to James Monroe Garrett and Callie Viola Garrett in Clifton, Texas. He was the youngest of four children. Garrett enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1963, serving three years as an ordnance specialist. Returning to civilian life, he held jobs in heavy duty engineering and as a Texas prison guard. He moved to Hot Springs in 1967 to work in a grocery warehouse supply, then enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in Little Rock in 1968. He served 21 years in uniform. Upon his retirement from the Air Force in 1987, he took a position with the Arkansas State Military Department as an Information Officer, working on the Adjutant General’s staff at Camp Joseph T. Robinson, North Little Rock. He is a graduate of the Defense Information School of Journalism and took post graduate courses at the University of Oklahoma. His news and feature stories have appeared in international newspapers and magazines. His first fiction, a Civil War story, was published by Louis L’Amour’s Western Magazine in 1995. He has also been published in Blood Moon Rising, Gateway Science Fiction, and Storyteller Magazine. He lives in Judsonia, Ark., is active in several writers’ groups, including the annual Arkansas Writers’ Conference. He has written and published five novels, a collection of short stories, a health guide and a ‘How to Write’ book. A long-time sponsor of writing contests, Garrett’s most notable effort, a Gimme the Creeps horror contest, led to his decision to publish an anthology of horror stories by other writers along with his own work. The Vault of Terror—Tales to Tell, premiered in 2018 and continues each year. More recently, Garrett wrote a screenplay based on his top-rated mystery novel, While the Angels Slept, and a one-act stage play about a 1930’s family victimized by a ne’er-do-well thief. In accepting his Hall of Fame award, Garrett said, “It is a humbling experience to read the biographies of the former selectees for this award. Every writer I know began their career the same way, having a story inside of them they just had to write. I’m honored that so many people like to read my novels and short stories.”