Tom Ratliff

       Tom teaches Connecticut History and Principles of Education at Central Connecticut State University. He also teaches in the Online Program for the Community Colleges of Connecticut. He is currently writing a book about Connecticut history for middle school-aged students.

Contact Tom.

Order Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from Amazon.

Order The Last of the Mohicans from Amazon.

Current Projects

You Wouldn't Want to Be a Pony Express Rider is slated for release by January, 2012.

I am also working on a story about the Flood of 1955, which devastated large parts of Connecticut.

The Drinking Gourd was read last year by a dozen elementary schools in Salina, Kansas. The Salina Journal newspaper  sponsored a contest with a $200.00 prize. The winners, Miss Anita Sutton's 3rd grade class at the Soderstrom Elementary School in Lindsborg, Kansas donated the money to the library in Greenburg, Kansas which was destroyed last year by a tornado. 

       When I was young I had no idea what I wanted to be: at various times I wanted to be a cowboy, a doctor, a famous army general, and an independently wealthy person who was permanently on vacation.

       In high school I always wondered in English class how the teachers seemed to know what an author was thinking when he or she wrote something in a certain way. Secretly I believed that you couldn't really tell why someone wrote something unless you could actually ask them. And since many of the authors were long dead I had my doubts that my teachers knew what they were talking about. One reason I wanted to become a writer was to prove my teachers wrong.

       I write because I love to pretend—create characters and situations, and have fun seeing how the characters solve the problems that I create for them. I also enjoy sharing my love of history—my goal as a writer and as a teacher is to get everyone to love history the way I do. I have made many converts over the years (including a certain co-author who will remain nameless), and hope to continue this streak for many years to come.

       I live in Plainville, Connecticut with my son Christian. I enjoy reading historical fiction and am currently working on a book about my experiences in Vietnam.

             In May of 2010, I was notified that I had been awarded a Solo Writers Fellowship Grant from the Greater Hartford Arts Council. Given through the generous support of the Beatrice Fox Auerbach Foundation Fund at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, this award will help me in my efforts to convert Fair Wind of Liberty, my serialized short story about Benedict Arnold's 1781 raid on Groton and New London into a book length adventure story. I am excited about the prospect of seeing the story published as an historical novel for young and teen readers and am very grateful for the encouragement and support that the Arts Council has shown in my work.

        From the Midwest Book Review, May, 2004:

       "Civil War Soldier: Looks at America’s bloodiest war from the perspective of what it was like to serve from both sides. The book explores everything from enlistment to medical treatments for injuries. This is a delicate subject to approach when writing a book for children and in my opinion Thomas Ratliff has done a superb job of getting the facts across in a serious yet entertaining way that is not threatening. I found it to be an enjoyable read filled with little known facts about the life of a soldier during service." 

       My latest graphic novelization - Jack London's Call of the Wild - was published earlier this year and over the summer I completed work on a book on the Pony Express for Scholastic Books (part of the "You Wouldn't Want to Be..." series). Currently I am devoting time to plotting out a mystery that has been rambling around in my head for a very long time while continuing to work on my Vietnam novel.

TOMONYMS

Drawn by Miranda Norris

        I have been on hiatus from writing serials until recently but am devoting time these days to completing two unfinished stories that have been hanging fire for about two years. My stories continue to be popular and have recently run in newspapers in Massachusetts, Connecticut, South Dakota, Kansas, and Tennessee. It is encouraging that while newspapers struggle to re-define themselves in the age of computers, the commitment to education and young adult literature continues to be strong.

Drawn by Lisa Goldfinger

Learn More about Tom's serialized stories.

Last Updated: 11/6/110

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