| Bio
Author Claude Walker has written novels about state politics, the Seminole Wars, baseball's globalization and now earthquakes.
In 2008, Walker participated in the Nanowrimo, in which 125,000 writers around the world each tried to pen a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. Walker nosed across the finish line with a pre-version of what became Seminole Smoke: An odyssey of power, love and blood in the Seminole Wars. Long fascinated by the Seminole Wars thanks to a history teacher uncle, Distant Drums and getting lost off I-75, Seminole Smoke had been rattling around in his head for years.
Walker successfully participated in the 2009 and 2010 Nanowrimos as part of the Chicago Team, whose motto is "Write Early and Often!"
In 2001, Walker made literary history twice with his epic, Currents of Power: A Modern Political Novel, the first political novel with a Latina protagonist and first novel about state politics to be e-published. The book features a character inspired in-part by then-State Senator Barack Obama. A revised edition was issued in 2009. Currents of Power has been used in college classrooms and by people considering a run for office.
Walker's latest novel, The New Madrid Quake Chronicles, is a parable about of two great families who survive the 1811-12 earthquakes that rocked Missouri and southern Illinois. Walker has completed work on The Earth Baseball Tourney: An Invitational to Disaster, a dark comedy about baseball, greed and killer cellphones.
In 2003, Walker was inducted into the Society of Midland Authors. Other published works include essays on Japanese baseball and Mexican travel, a subway haiku and countless press releases and letters-to-the-editor.
The grandson and son of Republican politicians, Walker has spent a lifetime in the rough-and-tumble of Illinois politics as a strategist, spin-doctor, organizer, lobbyist, Lincoln impersonator, logo designer, precinct captain, street-heat maestro, unsuccessful House candidate, speechwriter.
Walker has written and acted in TV and radio campaign spots, and was dubbed the "Stealth Fighter" by a Chicago columnist. A veteran of more than 60 campaigns, he served as an advisor to a U.S. Senator, State Treasurer, State Insurance Commissioner and Chicago Alderman, and spokesperson for Illinois Lt. Governor Pat Quinn (now Governor). He was campaign manager in the trailblazing judicial campaign of Sandra Otaka, the first Asian American judge elected in Cook County.
Walker was twice-elected State Chairman of Common Cause-Illinois, and was active in improving the state's Open Meetings and lobbyist disclosure laws. He spent years as lobbyist, spokesman and organizer for the Citizens Utility Board (CUB). With CUB, he organized hundreds of town hall meetings across Illinois and helped rally consumers to stop electric, gas and phone rate hikes.
Walker helped lead the successful 2003 fight to protect the Illinois River's Plum Island from developers who threatened an ancient Native American site, eagle nests and sauger fishing. In 2004, he staffed a State of Illinois task force to prevent power outages.
Walker has testified on such issues as campaign finance reform, electric rates, immigration quotas, Freedom of Information Act, winter heat shutoffs and District of Columbia voting rights. During the Boat People and Killing Fields crises, he addressed the GOP and Democratic National Convention Platform hearings, and helped with a bipartisan nationwide effort to get the U.S. Government to aid the refugees.
Walker runs Claudio's Museum of Political, Sports and Cultural Stuff, a 3,000-item memorabilia collection. A graduate of Loyola University of Chicago, Walker also attended Northern Illinois University, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Driscoll High School in Addison, IL. In the late '60s, he was keyboardist for "The Lost Generation", a garage band popular in Chicago's western suburbs.
Walker is an avid kayaker, having paddled in the DesPlaines River Marathon, Chicago River Flatwater Classic and "Ca-New Year's Morning on the North Branch". He has kayaked in the South China Sea, Gulf of Thailand, Sea of Cortez, Puerto Rico's Bioluminescent Bay, Islamorada, Tampa Bay, Santa Fe River, Kailua Bay, Bahía de Mujeres, Exuma Sound (Eleuthera), Alaska's Mendenhall Glacier Lake and Lake Michigan. He is a snorkeler, cyclist, skier, artist, musician, former Chicago cabbie and diehard Cubs fan. He recently completed his first 5K.
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