FBI Agent Tracy Walder Walks Through Autobiography Process

The annual Literary Festival brought many speakers, one of whom was Tracy Walder, a former CIA and FBI agent.

From 2000 to 2004, Walder worked in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations as Staff Operations Officer in the Counterterrorism Center’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Group. During her time in this department, she was sent to several different regions of Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. Her role was to assess the plans and capabilities of terrorist groups. 

In 2004, Walder became a Special Agent at the FBI and specialized in Chinese Counterintelligence Operations. She later became a teacher and taught history at The Hockaday School here in Dallas. 

Walder’s workshop focused on how to write an autobiography and she used examples from her own memoir to make what she was saying clearer to students. She also explained how to write a good story that would keep readers interested. 

“It was important to me that my story was a narrative and not just facts,” Walder said.

One of the key points in her discussion was how to find interesting moments in one’s life and create a narrative around them. She explained that many times people will glaze over fascinating and important details because they find it uninteresting. She went on to say that it’s vital not to let these stories go unnoticed because they may prove to be interesting to unexpected audiences.  

To further extend her point, Walder had the students participate in an exercise. She read aloud various questions that each student answered on a sheet of paper. They then traded papers with someone else and were asked to circle the answer that seemed most interesting to them.

After this, each student took turns interviewing their partner about the circled answer to learn more about it. When this was done, Walder asked the group if they were surprised by what their partner circled. Most said they were.

“I thought the whole workshop was very cool and interesting,” sophomore Mary Kate Ferguson said. “I’m going to buy her book and I can’t wait to read it.”

While most of the allotted time was taken up by the activity and Walder reading aloud from her autobiography, she ended the session by answering any questions the students had for her and speaking more in-depth about her writing process. 

She explained that one of the challenges of getting her book published was that the CIA’s Publications Review Board kept requesting that she remove any highly classified information. Walder said it took her four tries before she was finally allowed to publish her book.

She also revealed that an ABC television series based on her autobiography is in production. “Grey’s Anatomy” star Ellen Pompeo will serve as executive producer with Walder acting as a consultant to the series. 

To learn more about Walder’s life as a CIA and FBI agent, be sure to check out her new book, “The Unexpected Spy.”