Fred C. Wootan

Born 1944, in Middletown, Ohio, Fred received his bachelors' degree from the University of Dayton in 1976. He dropped out of full-time college work when he fell in love with Barbara, now his wife of forty-two years. He later finished his degree by attending classes at night. Fred received the prestigious insurance designation of Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter from the Insurance Institute of America in 1974 after completing an extensive study of the property casualty insurance industry.

Early in his insurance business career Fred began teaching insurance classes and published his first book The Successful Insurance Agency, to provide a teaching tool to individuals who wanted to enter that business. He followed this with writing his first mystery novels based on an insurance agent and his partner and Carmen Press published the first two of these, Death, Then Murder, and Murder Under Fire.

After spending nearly thirty-five years as a successful professional, executive, and business owner in corporate America Fred felt a call to teaching and left the world of insurance to begin a new career teaching American Literature and creative writing at the high school level. During summer break after his first year as a teacher, Fred penned an inspirational book for teens, "Incoming", based on his life experiences following God's messages.

It wasn't too long after entering the field of academia that Fred became concerned about the high turnover in that field. At the same time he discovered that his teaching style based on the management principles he had learned in college and practiced as a businessman could be a way to help reduce that problem. He felt it could increase the overall morale and teaching experience for teachers, and result in a better learning experience for students. He returned to the nonfiction field and used his writing skills to write Not In My Classroom, focusing on classroom management, and it was published by Adams Media. This was followed up with his book about all the fears that enter the classroom and inhibit the learning process titled No Fear In My Classroom.

He began to write while in college. He wrote what he calls the master dust collector. It was his first attempt at a full length novel and he has never submitted it to a publisher because, in his words, "It stinks!" He has enjoyed writing poetry and has had his poems published in anthologies. He also has written many articles for nationally published trade magazines further expanding his writing skills. Fred has never considered himself a novelist, but a writer who enjoys writing in many genres as well as in teaching them. Fred says, "Losing yourself in reading a good novel is second only to the writing of one."

His primary vocation of husband, father, and grandfather has meant that times have passed when writing took a back seat, but never has a part of his mind completely left the formation of the ideas that later became words on paper, for a writer must write. Fred tells his students that poetry involves putting your thoughts in written form using the fewest words possible, and you do it best when you fill the reader's mind with a lyrical mist of thought.