I am a patriot. I love my country and those who embrace her values and traditions. I owe no allegiance to any other country and the United States of America is "my heart". I have lived seventy-one years and during that time I have come to value the power of creative thinking. In 2007, battling disability and illness, I sat down at the keyboard and began to write stories about those who share my love of country. Shy, reclusive, but intent on finding creative energy, I wrote under a pen name. I derived it from the initials of my father (R.L.E.) who was an important influence on me as a writer. After joining my first writers group, my pen name "R.E.Cluse" some of my colleagues suggested I shorten the pen name to "Clu" and use my married name "Gallagher". Thus, my earliest books are signed "Clu Gallagher". As I continued to write and publish, the road was not easy. I made mistakes but I never lost the will to continue the learning process. The reviews, both positive and negative, helped me to release my shyness and I published my latest editions as "Maura Clu Gallgher". My work is fiction. I have set the story lines of the  lives of my characters into various times in history. Becoming a self-published author has been the greatest joy of my life, not only as an American woman, but as an artist who has found her voice. The rewards are intrinsic ones and they grow with every written paragraph, chapter, and finished product. However, it is the process that energizes me to continue writing, hoping that readers will find merit in my work and it will find a place in their minds and hearts.   

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