Margaret Lawrence
There is more than one author with this name
Lorraine Margaret Keilstrup, wrote as Margaret Lawrence, Margaret K. Lawrence and M. K. Lorens. Her last name is pronounced KEEL-strup. She was born in February 23, 1945 and died on January 8, 2012 in Freemont, Nebraska at her home.
Keilstrup graduated valedictorian from Fremont High School and then summa cum laude from Midland Lutheran College, now Midland University, in 1967. Keilstrup was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. She earned a Master of Arts and doctorate degrees from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, writing a doctoral thesis on The Myth of Cain in the Early English Drama in 1974. She taught there for several years and also taught in Fort Hays, Kansas.
She won several writing competitions during these years and then had plays produced at the Omaha Playhouse and on Nebraska-ETV, before giving up teaching and moving to New York City to pursue a career as a writer and playwright. Her plays were produced by the Hudson Guild and the New York Shakespeare Festival and she was a finalist for the Blackburn Prize in drama.
She wrote scripts for CBS-Universal Studios, notably for "The Equalizer" television series. The episode, "Riding the Elephant," received a superb rating on tv.com.
Keilstrup returned to Fremont to care for ailing family members, and lived in her 120 year old ancestral home, which was originally built by her grandfather in a cornfield outside Fremont and which starred a garden that contained her grandmother's roses and poppies first planted from seeds brought from Flanders Field after World War I. The Keilstrup home is the oldest home in Fremont continuously lived in by the same family.
After her return home, she began writing novels, first as M. K. Lorens and then as Margaret Lawrence.
As M. K. Lorens, she wrote five novels starring featuring Winston Marlowe Sherman, mystery-writing Shakespearan professor, beginning with SWEET NARCISSUS (Bantam, 1990) and ending with SORROWHEART (Doubleday, 1993). As Margaret Lawrence, she wrote three novels starring Hannah Trevor, Revolutionary War era midwife, and a number of other historical novels.
For these novels, she was a finalist for The Edgar, Anthony, Agatha, the UK’s Golden Dagger, and other literary awards. Her books were translated in to a number of other languages for nations like Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic and Japan. She also published poems and short stories.
Known to her friends and family for her intelligence, wit and humor, her deep compassion for others, and for her liking for privacy, she was also known for many creative talents, including her fluency in Danish, German, Spanish and French. She played the piano, composed folk songs, and excelled at Danish papercutting, needlework and quilting. Many of her projects were profiled in magazines. She died on January 8, 2012 at her home in Fremont, Nebraska.
“Every civilization built upon riches has died stillborn, ebbed away or fallen of its own weight. Once the inner eye glimpses wealth, the individual life is no longer of interest. The personal on every level becomes insignificant. Wives are abandoned, children discarded. Expendability rules. Gold erases the past, you see. It erases the mercy of God.”
“They say, he whispers, his lips making the word-shapes on her shoulder, there is a river that heals all wounds. It is pure white, like snow or the blossoms of prarie-cotton. You are my white river. If I die, I will come back to wash my heart in you.”