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Author Update 2024: E.P. Rose

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Since immigrating to the United States in 1986, Elizabeth (E.P.) Rose has shared her heart and hard-earned wisdom in memoirs, poems, artwork, and children’s verse. In her fourth memoir, The Long, the Short and the Tall: Tales of a New American (August 2023), she reveals her life in fifty-two stories collected “over the forty years she has spent in America. Some shocking, some sad, some to set you laughing, and others purely fantastical, each story triggered by a true event or impression, will give you a topic to think or laugh about.” Look for Liz’s books on her Amazon author page. For more about her work, read her 2015, 2019, and 2023 SWW interviews.

How would you describe The Long, the Short and the Tall?
We all have them. Stories accumulated over our lives. As an English transplant to America over 45 years ago, these are some of the stories based on true events…well mostly, as a few are definitely tall.

Is there one piece in the collection that characterizes the whole?
Perhaps “Butterfly Messenger,” the true event that shaped my decision to take the plunge and emigrate. And thereafter taught me to trust whatever message I should hear.

How is the book structured and why did you choose to organize it that way?
The true events are on the left-hand page. The stories arising from each follow beginning on the right page.

Some of the stories in this collection are decades old. At what point did you consider putting these short works into a book? Tell us more about The Long, the Short and the Tall and how it came together.
I have written with one true and objective friend every Sunday for two hours since taking up the pen at the end of 2009. Hence the number of stories began to mount up. Hmmm so what to do with them? I questioned. A shame to toss fifteen years writing in the garbage. So, I began searching for a theme to collate them into a book. At first, I struggled. Animals?… People in my life? Emotional growth? No. No. No. Then one day I sat up. Why the theme is YOU, I told myself. All the things that have struck you as a new American. There I had it…a theme.

What topics or themes does your book touch on that make it a perfect fit for a book club selection?
That’s something I’ve not thought about. But perhaps the lessons are observation and trust. A club might ask its members to recall some insightful experience in their lives that has changed/guided their actions.

What was your favorite part of putting this project together?
Recording the many wonderful and meaningful adventures I’ve had as a new American that I could never have experienced if I had stayed with my conservative and safe English life.

LW Lindquist once wrote that “poems ask wonderful questions, sometimes without including a single question mark.” Does The Long, the Short and the Tall ask any unspoken questions?
Oh yes…truth is certainly stranger than fiction, I discovered. Which story is which…? Is it short? Is it long? Is it tall?

If choosing the title for The Long, the Short and the Tall was a long or complicated process, tell us about that journey.
Searching for a theme that linked the stories, the title came to me as the tune of the well-known song of that name, came in a flash overnight.

As you judge success, which of your books do you consider the most successful?
Each book satisfies me in different ways so it’s difficult to choose. The Perfect Servant because it honors the everyday struggles caregivers live with. When Cows Wore Shoes because it records more than a decade of happy and life-changing summers with my children in rural Spain. Poet Under a Soldier’s Hat, the book that my father hoped to write of one hundred years of our family history in India.

How did your years as a sculptor influence your writing?
Sculpture and Writing are each a form of language…verbal and non-verbal so when I switched each felt equally creative.

Looking back to the beginning of your writing/publishing career, what do you know now that you wish you’d known then?
I wish my education had included the Great Books.

Do you have any writing rituals or something you absolutely need in order to write?
Silence. No music, no telephone suits me best.

What writing projects are you working on now?
Right now, a book of Spanish photographs taken with my Brownie Box recording a rural and gentle way of life under Franco…photo, one page, a one/two-line poem/saying the other. At the same time, I’m working on a separate project collating my prose poems to book form.

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
Only how grateful I am to SouthWest Writers from whom I have learned a little of the craft of writing…Arc. POV. Protagonist, etc. Things I had never been aware of.

KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. Kat has a speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.



Author Update: Rachel Bate

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Author Rachel Bate is a retired elementary and special education teacher who writes stories that encourage children to follow their dreams and to care about others and our planet. Her fifth children’s book release, Hatch Chile Willie (Mascot Kids, June 2024), is “an engaging, magical book celebrating New Mexico’s prized state vegetable.” You’ll find Rachel on her Amazon author page and on Facebook. Read more about her work in SWW’s 2023 interview.

What would you like readers to know about the story you tell in Hatch Chile Willie?
Hatch Chile Willie is a magical tale with the setting taking place in Hatch, New Mexico. The tale celebrates the state’s prized vegetable, Hatch Chile. The story whimsically narrates the relationship and beautiful bond that builds between a Hatch Chile farmer and a Spanish flamenco-dancing musical half-red and half-green pepper named Hatch Chile Willie.

Who are the main characters in the book and why will readers (young and old) connect with them?
Farmer Pablo and Hatch Chile Willie are the two main characters in the story. Farmer Pablo is a hard-working Hatch Chile farmer who recently lost his Esposa, missing her very deeply. In the beginning of the story, Farmer Pablo rests in his rocking chair after a hard day of work, suddenly a musical half-red and half-green chile pepper magically appears in his greenhouse. My book explores the unique friendship and bond that develops between Farmer Pablo and Hatch Chile Willie, which I truly feel will resonate with both young and old readers alike.

Why is New Mexico the perfect place for the story to play out? Do you incorporate recognizable New Mexico landmarks or icons?
The tiny town of Hatch, New Mexico, located in the heart of the Rio Grande farming community, is considered the Chile Capital of the world. I included the annual Hatch Chile Festival, occurring every Labor Day weekend, as one of the settings where the story transpires. At the end of the book, I devoted two collage pages of photographs that I captured while attending the 2023 Hatch Chile Festival. I also researched and included fun details about Hatch chiles grown in Hatch, New Mexico, for children to read about, enjoy, and discuss following the tale.

What topics or themes does your book touch on that would make it a perfect fit for the classroom?
I think an interesting theme that may be used in a classroom setting are the cultural influences of the tale pertaining to New Mexico. Teaching about the prized vegetable of Hatch Chile and how many farmers, workers, etc. create many useful and delicious products from the Hatch Chile that you can find all over the world (may be an early introduction to Economics!). I also included a little flamenco dancing that Hatch Chile Willie performs for Farmer Pablo with his basic step of “Toe, heel, heel, toe, stamp!” Hatch Chile Willie also enjoys singing Spanish music with homophones used in his amusing riddles to the delight of Farmer Pablo.

How did the book come together?
The idea for my story transpired from a road trip to Las Cruces, New Mexico, for a book signing event, traveling with my husband and our German shepherd, Bliss. As we were nearing Las Cruces, I was gazing out the window and immediately became inspired by the luscious green valley of the tiny town of Hatch, New Mexico. It was from that moment that my story evolved, taking most of the summer to write. After completing my story, I collaborated with the illustrator, my sister Rebecca Jacob. I always let her create illustrations based on what story I write. This is the first book that Rebecca used watercolors for the illustrations which created a playful and visually engaging storyline, especially with Hatch Chile Willie.

What makes this book unique in the children’s market?
I think what makes this book unique in the children’s market is the inclusion of Spanish words throughout the story with a Spanish English Glossary at the end. The book also celebrates the unique culture of New Mexico, with Hatch Chile Willie being both red and green, a flamenco-dancing chile pepper, an enchanting magical character as enchanting as the landscape of New Mexico.

Do you have a favorite character, image, or page spread from Hatch Chile Willie?
Throughout the book, illustrator Rebecca Jacob truly captured the playful character of Hatch Chile Willie that I imagined in my writing. I enjoyed creating Hatch Chile Willie as an inspiration to cheer up Farmer Pablo after losing his beloved wife. I feel that having a special friendship in difficult times gives us that extra needed push and empathy that we need to move on and confront certain hardships in life.

What do you love about this book?
I love the characters, the magical experience, and the heartwarming tale of friendship that I strove to create for all readers to hopefully enjoy and reread numerous times.

Of the five picture books you’ve released, which one did you enjoy writing the most and which was the most challenging?
Of the five picture books that I have written, I feel Desert Bliss, my first children’s book, was the most enjoyable yet challenging to write. It was a very new and thrilling experience for me to finally sit down, create, write, revise, publish, and finally fulfill my lifelong dream of writing books for children.

KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. Kat has a speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.



Author Update 2024: Irene I. Blea

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Dr. Irene Blea is a nonfiction author, novelist and poet, as well as a retired university professor and civil rights activist. Her newest book release is Dragonfly (March 2024), a collection of poems spanning 50 years of her life in which she “shares her transformation from the prescription of traditional female roles riddled by confusion and conflict to one of peace, understanding, and redefinition.” Look for Irene on Facebook. You’ll find many of her books on her Amazon author page, but Dragonfly is available here. Read more about Irene’s work in SWW’s 2015 and 2017 interviews.

What are you trying to communicate to readers through Dragonfly?
Humans need beauty in their world. It is a healing element. Each year I wait for a golden dragonfly to visit my yard. It stays for hours in the same place, and we commune with one another. I thank it for sharing its beauty. It makes me feel connected. If it does not appear, I miss it and wait for it the following year. The cover is indicative of my need for beauty and connection. As humans, we sometimes need to heal from something that has no name or something to which we have paid little attention. Because I have experienced this, I offer my understanding as a spiritual guide via poems of transformation and healing.

Is there one piece in the collection that gets to the heart of the whole?
It is difficult to select one, but I feel it is hija de la tierra because it speaks to healing from racism, class discrimination, and sexism. I often switch between two languages because this is the way I think and feel things. It is how I navigate in two worlds.

♦◊♦◊♦hija de la tierra
♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦your ancestors were goddesses and kings
♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦who ruled across lifespans
♦◊♦◊♦your ancestors have been diminished
♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦to barrio dogs and cats
♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦dogs and cats who roam the alleys of society
♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦dogs and cats who teach us how to live
♦◊♦◊♦hija de la tierra
♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦you were born to reign above the mountains
♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦♦◊♦◊♦you should be born to live in peace

While going through your fifty years of poems, did you discover something about yourself or your poetry? Has your writing style changed over the years?
To my surprise, I discovered I was at the forefront of Chicano and Chicana poetry in the late 1960s and 70s. I had not realized this because I was busy researching, teaching, developing university courses, and writing textbooks because there were none in the beginning of the sociology of Chicano Studies. My feminism is consistent. The book is a composition of three chapbooks, and I inform the reader about how my style changed because of my education and some of it remained the same because of my politics.

What challenges did this work pose for you?
This work was not very challenging because I had read my poems to audiences for years, and I already had the work in print in the form of chapbooks. I dictated the work from the chapbooks to my computer, revised them a bit, and sent it to a couple of outside readers who made the work better.

How did the book come together?
I started the process on New Years Day of this year. The inspiration is the first sentence of the introduction to the book: “On January 1st, 2024, I opened my eyes and asked into the crispness of my bedroom if I would die that year. I have been obsessed with my death for decades… The room responded with, ‘I don’t know.’ I decided to rise and make some coffee….” While the coffee was brewing, I decided I did not want to die without letting readers know I had written poetry. My poems had been published in several places, but I did not have an entire book of poetry printed and distributed. It took a few months. As mentioned above, it was rather simple to put the book together since I had so much poetry categorized in the chapbooks.

The Dragonfly book cover is beautiful. Tell us about the process of working with the artist.
The publication is a composite of three talented females: me the author, Rose Kern the publisher, and my daughter, Raven, the cover artist who does not use her last name. We worked well together. Rose and Raven know their craft well and all I had to do was trust their feedback. I knew I wanted a “pretty” cover and Raven presented me with three options. Raven did the cover of my autobiography, Erené with Wolf Medicine, and I loved it. This made it easy to work with her.

How and why did you chose the title of the book?
The title is generally the most difficult part for me. It was late spring, and the publisher needed a title. Since I was waiting for the golden dragonfly to appear, Dragonfly seemed to fit.

Of all the books you’ve written, which one was the most challenging and which one was the easiest (or most enjoyable) to write?
Dragonfly was the easiest one to take from concept to publication and distribution. The most difficult book to write was my autobiography, Erené with Wolf Medicine. I wrote about leaving the Catholic Church, getting divorced, contemplating an abortion, domestic violence, and suicide. Each time I wrote about them, reviewed and edited them, I re-experienced the emotions. At the same time, in the end, it was cathartic, and I released a lot of sensations and found it healing. But it was difficult to take it from concept to publication, then release it for distribution.

What poets do you continually go back to?
I return to the classic Spanish writers because Spanish is such a beautiful poetic language. Sometimes the mystical, magical, tone of a poem is difficult to translate into English. Fedrico Garcia Lorca, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Pablo Neruda are among my favorites.

Do you have a preference for poetry structure or form when you write or read?
I write poetry by inspiration. Something needs to affect me profoundly. I am not trained in poetry, so structure and form are only important to the degree that I want to render emotion or message. Most of my structure and form is in breaking mainstream rules. It comes from reading and writing Chicano, Native American, and Afro American resistance poetry by other writers, which I began to do at the height of the Chicano movement.

Do you remember what inspired you to write your first poem?
As a child, I shared a bedroom with my younger sister, who was very ill and could not sleep. To comfort her, I recited poems. But I did not write anything down. Sometimes in the darkness of our bedroom, she would request a story that rhymed. They were generally about an animal, child clown, or a pretty lady.

How does a poem begin for you, with an idea, a form, an image?
A poem begins for me with an emotional reaction. They are like prayers.

What do most well-written poems have in common?
They must be written within the economy of language and render an emotional tone. I seek images and feelings, or that the scene is fully rendered. Well-written poems for me are not terribly long, epic, although my poems have become longer recently, and I cannot explain that. Except to say that the issues I have been writing about have to do with the environmental factors that ravage the environment and how Mother Earth struggles to respond to those ravages.

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
Healing must take place holistically at the physical, emotional and spiritual level. Pills, ointments, and massage can do some of that but there are other forms of medicine. Acupuncture, the sun, dragonflies, the presence of certain people, and animals can bring healing. These are healing elements, medicine, which address the physical, emotional, and spiritual components of health.

KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. Kat has a speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.



SWW Members Win in Local 2024 VA Creative Writing Contest

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Five members of SouthWest Writers have been recognized at the Raymond G. Murphy VA Medical Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico for their entries into the 2024 VA Creative Writing Contest.

The winners are:

Mark Fleisher
“A Look Over My Shoulder” – Short, Short Story, 3rd place
“Riding the Horse” – Rhyming Poetry, Military Experience, 3rd place
“Sunset on the Trail” – Non-Rhyming Poetry, General Topics, 3rd place

Walter “Butch” Maki
“My Memorial Day Speech 2024” – Personal Essay, Inspirational, 2nd place

Raymund Tembreull
“Boxes” – Personal Essay, General Topic, 2nd place
“Rootless” – Rhyming Poetry, General Topic, 1st place

Jim Tritten
“Death by Chocolate” Personal Essay, General Topic, 3rd place
“There’s a W on the Back” – Short, Short Story, 1st place

Dan Wetmore
“Best Gift Ever” Personal Essay-General Topic, 1st place
“This” – Non-Rhyming Poetry-General Topics, 2nd place
“Unfriendly Fire” – Short Script, 1st place

Veterans enrolled in the VA Healthcare System are eligible to enter this annual contest. The first-, second-, and third-place winners all advance to regional competition. Survivors compete for a spot at the National Veterans Creative Arts Festival. This prestigious event, held at a different location each year, showcases the artistic talents of veterans from across the country. Butch, Jim, and Dan have previously won Gold first-place medals at the national level.



An Interview with Author Kendra J. Loring

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Kendra J. Loring is passionate about working with rescue horses in her therapeutic riding business. Her debut graphic novel, The Saga of Henri Standing Bear: A Rescue Story (Enchanted Equine Adventures Book 1, April 2024), is dedicated to horse rescues and the people who work so hard every day to save them. You’ll find Kendra on her website for Enchanted Equine Adventures and on Amazon.

Who is Henri Standing Bear and what do you admire most about him?
Henri is a horse who works as a lesson horse at the business I own, Enchanted Equine Adventures. I love how sweet he is with people, despite his old trauma and injuries.

What do you hope readers will take away from the book?
I hope the readers of his book see the value in rescue animals and get motivated to help all rescue animals! I hope they see Henri’s trauma as a small part of his story.

When did you decide to share Henri’s story? What was the “kick in the pants” to get started on the manuscript?
I’ve always wanted to write a book. I’ve been a writer since college in the 1990s. And when one of my favorite people put out a kid’s book, I knew it was time for me to do it! Bobby Bones’ Stanley the Dog: First Day of School was the inspiration for me getting Henri’s book together finally.

What challenges did this work pose for you?
Deciding whether or not to self-publish was a big challenge for me. It was a huge decision. I am glad I did publish on Amazon, but I can see the benefits of having a marketing team to help promote the book, also.

Tell us how the book came together.
It didn’t take as long to write the story as I would have thought, because most of it is actually true. Finding an illustrator was as easy as asking my mentor at WESST to help me locate someone in Albuquerque who does art. WESST is a great recourse for local small business owners. The editing took a bit longer because neither of us had done a book before.

It must have been exciting to see how illustrator Emina Slavnic interpreted your story. Do you have a favorite image or page spread from The Saga of Henri Standing Bear?
I love the images of Henri as a foal out in the Gila Mountains. And since we lost Acheron last year, I really like the images of Henri and Ash playing! I even made the image into a coffee mug for my mom, who loved Acheron like a grandchild.

What was the most rewarding aspect of working on this project?
I love seeing how much Henri has affected other people’s lives. He truly is a super horse!

What topics does The Saga of Henri Standing Bear touch on that would make it a good fit for the classroom?
I love Henri’s story. I think it shows the reader how strong and resilient rescue animals are. It shows how much horses can give back to us. And it gives hope when everything looks hopeless.

Why write a children’s book as opposed to telling Henri’s story in memoir or novel form?
I always saw his story as a graphic novel, with Henri as the super hero. As a riding instructor, I get to chat with all kinds of different kiddos (teens and pre-teens) about books. They overwhelmingly wanted a graphic novel about horses. Once we have the first three volumes done, we will bind them into one big graphic novel.

What did you learn in writing/publishing the book that you can apply to future projects?
I learned how to separate writing, illustration, and formatting of a graphic novel. I knew nothing about the illustration or the formatting until I got involved in this book. I’ve learned a ton about it during this process and I am confident about how to move forward with book two.

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
The name Henri Standing Bear is from the Longmire book series. Henry in the books is Sheriff Longmire’s best friend. Lou Diamond Phillips plays him perfectly in the TV series. Henry has this side-eye look that he gives Longmire when they are doing something they shouldn’t be, and our Henri does the same look! So, I went ahead and got permission from Longmire author Craig Johnson to use the name in my book. He said he would be honored!

KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. Kat has a speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.



An Interview with Author Tim Amsden

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Tim Amsden is a retired attorney whose poetry can be found in national and international publications, as well as several anthologies. His first memoir, Love Letter to Ramah: Living Beside New Mexico’s Trail of the Ancients (University of New Mexico Press, September 2024), was inspired by two decades of living in the Ramah Valley. The memoir has been called a book of “gentle wisdom and quiet inspiration” that “reveals a deep sense of the land and lore of that patch of paradise presently known as New Mexico.” You’ll find Tim on Amazon and his SWW author page.

What do you hope readers will take away from Love Letter to Ramah?
The book’s narrative follows my wife Lucia and me as we take a midlife “off the cliff” leap from Kansas City into the natural beauty, deep history, and strong sense of place that pervade northern New Mexico. There we deepened our heightened visceral understanding that to survive and prosper as a species, we must live in concert with each other and the needs of the living earth. It also gave us a belief that those things are possible.

My hope is that in the process of walking along with us through our experiences and discoveries, the reader will feel a similar shift. I also hope they are entertained and surprised as they encounter such things as singing toads, talking pots, vampire bugs, and the daughter of the sun god in a land where ravens soar above the rhythmic yelp and drone of Native music, and old Spanish missions hunker over the bones of ancient peoples.

Tell us about the journey from inspiration to push to begin and completion of your first memoir.
Love Letter began its conceptual life some fifteen years ago with the working title Folk Music, a reference to the eclectic and diverse community of loving, earth-rooted people we encountered in the Ramah area, then it grew and morphed over a number of years, somewhat like Topsy.

A few experiences and people in the book were described earlier in other publications, including New Mexico Magazine and the volume I edited about the medicine man Bear Heart Williams titled The Bear Is My Father. Other pieces were written along the way, and some were added during the process of editing with the University of New Mexico (UNM) Press.

Although I’m listed as author, Love Letter was shaped by several other people as well. My wife Lucia was part and parcel of the entire process. She is also a writer, and her memories, suggestions, and editorial expertise are present throughout. Credit also goes to the folks at the press, especially my editor, who masterfully edited and championed the book, and to friends and early readers who provided invaluable input. Finally, the community itself deserves credit for creating many of the experiences related in Love Letter. Particularly notable is Ramah photographer Nancy Dobbs, who contributed the exquisite photograph that graces the book’s cover, shot from her front door.

What challenges did this work pose for you?
I think the greatest challenge was having the patience to let the process unfold in its own time until all the pieces were there, the narrative complete, and the central thrust clear. And although the book took a long time to create, that was a good thing, because some key portions were added at the very end. In addition, it was important to know when the book was complete and the time had come to stop tweaking and tuning. I once heard a painter say that one of the most challenging things for her was knowing when to stop, and that is true of many creative processes, including writing.

How is the book structured and why did you choose to put it together that way?
To some extent the structure is inherent; it follows the timeline through our move from Kansas City to the Ramah Valley, our twenty years in Ramah, and our eventual relocation in Albuquerque. Other pieces, such as experiences and explorations, natural and human history, sense of place, the night sky, sun dances and ghosts, were arranged to help readers flow easily along and remain engaged. In some ways it was like assembling a music compilation.

What was the expected, or unexpected, result of writing/publishing Love Letter to Ramah?
I had just started what I thought would be a long and tedious process of searching for a publisher (I do not have an agent) by sending out query letters to three publishers. One of them was UNM Press. The publication of the book exceeded any expectations I might have had, because of all publishers, UNM Press was my first choice. They responded by requesting to see the manuscript. The process that followed of creating the book with them was rigorous, very productive, and highly supportive.

Do you have a favorite quote from the book?
One of my favorite qualities of New Mexico is its resplendent sky, especially in the Ramah area, where air and light pollution are at a minimum. Here’s a bit from the chapter titled “Starry Starry Night”:

Sometimes after returning home at night and pulling into our garage, we would step out under the sky and one of us would whisper, “Look at that!”  People where we lived tended to talk in hushed voices when they were out beneath the stars, nightly reminders of the vastness of which they are a part. Perhaps awe of the night sky is even embedded in our DNA, a connection to universal mystery that we have experienced throughout our long evolutionary path.

We are literally children of the stars; every atom in our bodies was created in the furnaces of stars that died long ago. As the astronomer Carl Sagan once put it, “We are a way for the universe to know itself. Some part of our being knows this is where we come from. We long to return. And we can, because the cosmos is also within us.” We are, however, in danger of losing that knowing, as our visibility of the night sky dims. To me, that is a very sad thing, perhaps even a subtle limitation of our ability to be a global tribe together. Gazing at the stars is an experience that gives us all common ground and connects us to the vastness of creation.

Any “Oh, wow!” moments while doing research for Love Letter?
There were so many. A few examples are the unlikely story of Esteban, the Moroccan slave owned by a Spanish conquistador, who was the first person to make contact between Spain and the Zuni people; the macabre method tarantula hawks use to feed their young; the existence of the groups of people called Penitentes and Genizaros; and the strange desert-adopted life of the singing spade-foot toads.

A definite wow was the fact that a Native American oral constitution — the Great Law of Peace of the Iroquois Confederacy — was an important model for the documents that defined the values and structure of our new country, including the U.S. Constitution.

The most personally interesting was a dawning awareness that unlike most of the rest of the country, many of the artifacts and indications of earlier people in New Mexico are readily visible, present, and sometimes still in use. Spain, for instance, introduced acequias (a type of irrigation canal) to New Mexico around 400 years ago, and they still carry water for crops. Among other places, they crisscross parts of Albuquerque, and we sometimes take walks along them where they run through parks and behind homes.

Also, there are areas still held by their owners under old Spanish land grants, and signs on highways let motorists know when they are entering and leaving them. Finally, Catholic Missions built when New Mexico was part of the Spanish empire are numerous, especially on Native reservations.

Native people have also left their artifacts in and on the land. It’s not unusual to spot sherds, grinding stones, arrow points, petroglyphs, and ruins that were created many hundreds or even thousands of years ago. Before we moved to New Mexico, Lucia and I visited Albuquerque and stayed in a Bed and Breakfast near the Rio Grande River. The first morning, the owners led us down a staircase to the basement, where there was a dirt wall marked with dates of native settlements going back hundreds of years.

How did your work as a poet influence your memoir?
Being a poet has given me a love of lyrical and unusual ways of saying things, a fascination with the ineffable, and the practice of editing closely and repeatedly. Hopefully there are whiffs of those things in this book. In a broader sense, poets are somewhat like monks. They know their work will mostly be read by other poets, so they tend to be less ego-driven and more engaged in their creativity for its own sake. As a result, writing poetry has given me the habit of finding satisfaction in the process itself. It helps me see this book as a gift to the world, a small gesture toward loving the earth and each other.

Did you ever feel as if you were revealing too much of yourself (or anyone else) in writing your story?
No. I tried hard to avoid including things about other people that might disturb or hurt them. In the case of myself and my wife Lucia, we both wanted to share anything, good or bad, that made this a better book.

What is the first piece of writing you can remember completing?
When I was in the seventh grade in Robinson Junior High School in Wichita, I wrote a humor column in our little school paper called “Off the Deep End with Tim.” After reading my first submission, my home room teacher, who was also the paper’s editor, contacted my parents and said that it was so well written that I must have plagiarized it. That backhanded compliment put me over the moon and, I think, lit my writerly fuse.

Do you prefer the creating or editing aspect of writing? How do you feel about research?
I love them all. I am by nature a scavenger, always looking for unusual bones and stones, bright lizards and flowers and birds. So a phrase that pops, a clarifying shift, or a fact that casts new or different light are all grist to my scavenging mill.

What do you consider the most essential elements of a well-written memoir?
To me, a memoir is especially memorable if it contains a theme that provides a takeaway for the reader. As I was working with UNM Press, someone there asked, “What is the book’s raison d’être?” I could answer the question, but it motivated me to amend the text, so it expressed the central message more directly.

Is there something you’d like to develop from material you haven’t been able to use?
In downtown Kansas City, Kansas, there is a small shady cemetery dating from the late 1800s that shelters the remains of many Wyandotte Indians, most in unmarked graves. Among the few headstones that do exist are ones for the three Conley sisters, Lyda, Helena, and Ida, who dedicated their lives to protecting the graveyard from attempts to replace it with new development. They lived at that time on the land, often sitting with shotguns in their laps in front of the shack they built there. Eventually, Lyda Conley became a lawyer, and she defended the cemetery before the Supreme Court of the United States, thereby becoming the first woman of Native Ancestry to be admitted to the U.S, Supreme Court Bar. Although her case failed, the sisters gained support for their cause and the cemetery was not sold. I came across this cemetery once while taking a walk from my office in the EPA building a couple of blocks away, and returned many times because the energy of the place is palpable. I would get shivers every time I read the message on Helena Conley’s stone: “Cursed be the Villains that molest their graves.” I think this story calls out for an author, and I’ve thought about it for years.

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
I wish you all good things, and thank you for spending this time with me.

KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. Kat has a speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.



An Interview with Authors Robert Churchill & Steven Lisberger

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SouthWest Writers’ member Robert Churchill and writer/director Steven Lisberger (well-known for Tron, 1982) relied on a forty-year friendship and a shared love of story in their collaborative effort to create a novel based on one of Steven’s screenplays. Their debut release, Topeka (October 5, 2023), has been called “a sexy, fast-paced and exciting adventure drawing upon sci-fi, anime, and steam punk genre sensibilities in a hard-boiled noir mystery presentation.” You’ll find Steven at StevenLisberger.com and IMDb. Contact Bob through his dedicated Topeka email address bc@topekanovel.com, and look for Topeka at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other major booksellers.

What would you like readers to know about the story you tell in Topeka?
RC: Ultimately, Topeka is a story about values — how some have been cast aside to society’s detriment, and how some have eternal redemptive value. As every story recounts a journey, Topeka is about how our choices on our individual journeys bestow or deny redemption.

SL: The novel is in part inspired by Japanese anime. It’s a story about how in a world of advanced AI we need our bodies more than ever.

What part did each of you play in putting the book together?
RC: Steven wrote a slightly different version of Topeka — a screenplay — a few years ago. I was blown away by the originality and power of the story, and by the maturity and timeliness of its themes, and just never forgot about it. For one reason and another, it wasn’t made into a movie, and when Steven was casting about for his next project (the man simply can’t NOT be writing something), I lobbied him hard to re-write it as a novel — that it was a story that needed to be told. He was reluctant, having never before written a novel, but the end result of somewhat comical negotiations between us, was that we agreed to proceed as co-authors, with him very much in the lead. After having a front-row seat to his prodigious and powerful creative output for most of my adult life, it was like being asked by John Lennon to re-write a song he’d never finished. An opportunity only the insane would pass up.

SL: Bob has a great deal of patience and is an excellent finisher, he enjoys completion. I prefer getting a project roughed out. It’s conception and rough excitation that gives me the greatest thrill. By the time I complete the mountain of ideas required, and figure out what the hell they mean, I find I have used up a considerable amount of my patience. I guess my imagination has already filled it in, finished it, and my body resents that my mind got so far ahead. My practical mind sulks over the cleanup and organization work still required. I must confess I do enjoy going over Bob’s finished material and looking for edits, additions or things I feel would benefit from more polishing. That part of finish work is fun for me; I enjoy how the smallest change can feel so important. I love drilling down on theme and structure at the end when one knows exactly what the characters are thinking.

Did what-if questions help shape this work?
RC: Steven’s answer to this question couldn’t be more complete or accurate, so I’ll leave it to stand on its own, but one of the great things about our friendship is that I’ve been one of his go-to sounding boards for decades (we’re each the brother the other never had), and even though his ideas are amazing, he’s always been willing to hear my take on them — as I often see what he sees just a little differently. He’s always been generous in his consideration of my perspective, and having these discussions with him for so many years has enriched my life tremendously. Moving into the realm of me actually making creative contributions to Topeka’s world and story upped that experience dramatically; it was very gratifying.

SL: I would say that what-if questions were the basis: What if the mind of my super professional, experienced, and wise attorney-wife was in the body of a young babe? My wife, Peggy, freely admits that 50 years ago when she was my hot babe, she didn’t know a tenth of what she does now. Of course I didn’t either, so that worked out. What if there was an accomplished enlightened and heroic doctor/surgeon who learned about the body, the secrets of life and death, by being a trained killer? What if an AI could merge with and assume the identity of a dead human? What if our leads could hack human minds? What if you fell in love with the ultimate woman in spite of knowing she was too good to be true? What if technology allows us to never grow up?

Tell us about your main protagonists and why readers will connect with them.
RC: Topeka is a near-future sci-fi action/adventure story, but largely follows the genre conventions of hard-boiled noir detective novels and films, so the cast of characters, although moving fluidly in a setting of cutting-edge high tech, AI, climate change, and the pressures these exert on society, remain somewhat familiar. Nora Osborne is the heiress to a high-tech fortune and CEO of the mega-corporation her eccentric genius father founded. Bode, a former military cyber-surgeon, is her employee but finds himself, in the course of being her protector, conflicted between oppositional oaths — to do no harm and to be ready to take a life to save one. These two navigate a lethal landscape among good guys who aren’t as good as they seem, bad guys who are worse than they seem, and assorted henchmen and double-crossers with their own sinister agendas, all while falling in love. In toto, they all keep the noir pot boiling non-stop. It’s a lot of fun laid over some very thoughtful thematic material.

SL: The protagonists are their own characters. Nora has an extreme experimental fantasy adventure. She is a mature successful woman who through a twist of fate and cutting-edge cyber tech, manages to have a young body again. With that young body she joins forces with her young doctor who falls in love with her. Together they accomplish the impossible, including having a love affair and breaking every law in the books, but when it’s all over she gets to return to her original body and rejoin her family and her adventure remains her dark secret. Kind of the perfect midlife crisis. Bode gets to be the ultimate healer for those who need his unique skills, but to save his patient he must also rely on what he knows about how to best destroy some extremely dangerous minds and bodies. Sometimes the cure is a whole lot worse than the disease. Bode is a Shiva, creator and destroyer.

How difficult was switching gears from your past type of writing projects to that of writing a novel?
RC: I’ve always written, but have never called myself a writer. I have a fairly substantial following online, though not under my own name, and have published a few pieces for a local newspaper, like an interview with David Crosby. So that Steven and I could better speak the language of screenwriting between us, I wrote a full-length screenplay — and that may yet find itself re-written as a novel.

SL: I primarily wrote screenplays, lots of screenplays; this is my first novel. Looking back at my scripts they feel like poetry compared to a novel. Screenplays, it is often said, rely on three things, structure, structure, and structure. It was a lot of fun in writing a novel to embellish in ways one could never do in a script. For starters, what the inner life of a character was, backstory, and filling in the world. And my favorite, writing tons more dialogue.

According to Topeka’s acknowledgment page, you two are lifelong friends. When did you meet, and how have you managed to remain friends for so long?
RC: Steven and I were introduced to one another by a third party who told him he should meet me — that we’d get along. That person was right, and we’ve been pretty much best friends since the day we met, through all of life’s ups and downs. I think it’s helped a lot that I’m not in any aspect of the film business, because that world is very much its own thing and almost impossible to stay grounded in, let alone maintain friendships. All my working years I was a building contractor, and when we’d get together at his place, we always went to the hardware store instead of anywhere “glamorous” even though our second-tier hangouts tend to be art galleries and museums.

SL: We met through Animalympics, a project I did for NBC’s coverage of the 1980 Olympics. Bob and I are children of the sixties, and share a belief that some aspects of the 60s philosophy have never lost their power and are sorely needed now more than ever. We both still believe in the power of the mysterious and believe that not all confusion is to be avoided. Sometimes the only way to get to where you need to go is through seemingly impenetrable confusion. We have always relied on each other for help in taking on the unknown. Bob is my sounding board and the fact that he is an excellent wordsmith was just a bonus. Over the years we have talked enough to fill shelves of books.

What was your favorite part of putting this project together?
RC: The best part of this project for me has been to make real and valued creative contributions to the work of someone I know to be a genius — and I don’t use that word lightly. In Tron Steven pretty much invented the look the whole world has adopted as “the look of the future.” Not silver-lame body suits with bubble helmets and not the beat up and dented Star Wars look. That neon-highlighted look may never die, and Tron sequels will keep being made long after we’ve all passed. Now it’s also the world’s most popular amusement ride. And there’s SO much more to Steven’s stream of creative output and insight than just Tron. In Japan he’d be revered as a living treasure. And hey, he’s my best friend! As a co-author he was tough — believe it — but I always knew and accepted that we were writing his story, not mine, and that all he wanted was to help me be a better writer. And he damn sure made me one.

SL: The plot is complex as are the characters. And there are a lot of characters. Because of the complexity there were worries about how all this would resolve. To feel all the gears mesh perfectly for the first time at the climax was the big payoff, and made all the work worth it. I have to say the years of preliminary work made all the difference.

Why did you choose Topeka for the title of the book?
SL: After Tron world, I liked the idea of focusing a cutting-edge sci-fi story in America’s heartland. And I always enjoyed that the name Topeka sounded a bit like a combo of Japanese anime titles.

How do your other passions (such as woodworking) intersect with your writing?
RC: Being a builder, I learned long ago that every ounce of every structure has to be transferred one way or another to the earth for the structure to be sound — and the same applies to a work of fiction. It’s all about premise as foundation, and themes as framing. The satisfaction in standing back and seeing how doing it right makes a thing of beauty is the same for either.

SL: Again, I enjoy hunting for the perfect piece of wood, chain sawing it out of the log, mulling and turning it to its shape, but would be happy to have another woodworker sand, finish, and polish the piece. And to my amazement I have heard some woodworkers enjoy that second phase the most because they get to see the beauty of the wood emerge. I have learned to be content with seeing that beauty in my mind’s eye. I should mention I never did find a partner in wood turning.

What do your mature selves bring to the writing table that your younger selves never could have?
RC: Steven’s and my situation is not at all common, but we were fortunate to have decades of solid friendship to get us through the creative process — but that seems to translate to “check your ego at the door” and just do the work. Doing the work with a pro’s pro wasn’t easy, but I never forgot that any number of aspiring writers would have killed to be in my place — tutored by the guy who wrote Tron. It was easily a not-easy graduate course in writing and drama.

SL: I have been writing for over fifty years. I am finally getting to the point where I feel I know what I enjoy the most, and am confident that I have the skills to execute. In the past when I picked the right story and characters and pulled it off there was a certain amount of happenstance and luck involved. I also now enjoy the confidence of knowing I have the tools and weapons to get myself out of any traps I may set for myself. It’s a cliché to say it but now holes are really more opportunities.

What do many beginning writers misunderstand about telling a story?
RC: Thinking a story will write itself from an interesting premise and engaging characters is a fool’s errand. Only a genius doesn’t need to know how a story ends when he or she sits down to write it. Beginning, middle, end — or don’t bother.

SL: I find young writers today are very good at knowing a genre’s conventions. But perhaps are too cautious about breaking those conventions and going off formula. One way to gain that confidence is to think thematically. Early on a hint of theme can be a North Star — and by the end it can make sense of the impossible.

Who are your favorite authors, and what do you admire most about their writing?
RC: Owing to the genre template we were working in (noir fiction), Steven had me read a ton of Hammet and Chandler to get a feel for the word flow and (hopefully) develop in me some discipline in saying more with fewer words — I stray too easily into the florid and verbose. He did me (and himself) a great favor.

SL: Shakespeare because he had no prejudices. He never picks sides but finds a way to ridicule and elevate all comers. He treats kings like fools and fools like kings. The beautiful as hideous and the wretched as beautiful.

What are the hardest kinds of scenes for you to write?
RC: With Topeka, I got to be the set decorator — so not really hard. Shakespeare’s settings are brutally austere — “a castle” or “an apartment” — and that’s it. I’m a very visual guy. I see the blank page as a movie screen. I describe what I’d like to see on the screen, so I moved Steven’s characters across my sets. Steven gave me a lot of leeway, and I sprung things on him that weren’t in the original version. The first time or two there were some tense moments between us. “You could have asked,” he’d say, but as we went on, it started to flow, and frankly, by me feeling free to throw stuff against the wall, I think he was inspired to go even further in his imagination than he had (which was already breathtaking) and we wound up really stoked by the process. We love what we got.

SL: Everyday stuff.

What writing projects are you working on now? Do you have plans for future collaborations?
RC: Well, Steven is still my best friend, and the man simply has no idea how to slow down his imagination. So, who knows?

SL: Still basking in the afterglow of completing Topeka. My story file is a few hundred pages of concepts and characters, I have a love hate relationship with it.

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
RC: In my view, there are few popular entertainments that are both just plain fun and edifying. Topeka delivers both in spades.

KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. Kat has a speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.



Author Update 2024: Larada Horner-Miller

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Retired teacher Larada Horner-Miller writes historical fiction, memoir and biography, and poetry. Her newest release, Hair on Fire: A Heartwarming & Humorous Christmas Memoir (September 2023), is an uplifting collection of poetry and prose centered around family. You’ll find Larada on her website LaradasBooks, her Etsy shop LaradasReadingLoft, and her Amazon author page. Connect with her on Facebook and Twitter. Read more about her work in SWW’s 2017 and 2018 interviews.

Why did you write Hair on Fire? Who is the audience for the book?
I love Christmas! Originally some of the material in Hair on Fire I shared in my weekly blog, then it hit me that I could collect it, add to it and it would be a fun and heartfelt Christmas book. The audience of this book is for Christian families, women, and children who feel connected to Christmas and would enjoy a nostalgic look back.

What prompted the push to begin the project, and how did the book come together after that?
After writing several blog posts over the years for Christmas, I realized how much I loved sharing my Christmas experiences with my readers, and how much they enjoyed them—a perfect reason to collect them, add new ones and publish this book. So, I started working on it in the beginning of 2022, then I sent it off to my editor July 14, 2022. (I have such a wonderful editor who has edited my last four books!) Because I self-publish, when I received her final edit August 14, I set up the interior in Vellum. I released it September 6, 2023 while my husband and I were traveling in Germany. That was an amazing experience to keep track of the book launch long distance.

How did you organize this collection of prose and poetry?
There are thirty-one chapters with some being poetry, others prose. In some I invite the reader to go inside the Christmas story and experience with the main characters—Mary and Joseph—what happened so many years ago. Also, I sprinkled some of my favorite Scriptures throughout. I use a lot of graphics and pictures for the visual learner. (I’m a retired middle school literature, language arts, Spanish and computer teacher, so I still think about learning styles!) At the end of the book, I provide a couple of lists of my favorite Christmas readings and movies.

What unique challenges did this work pose for you?
I wanted to balance the poetry and prose and invite the reader into how I experienced Christmas during a time very different from today: in a small ranching community in southeastern Colorado where we cut our tree down off our ranch. Also, I had to include a sorrowful experience noting the last Christmas with my brother-in-law who showed us all the true meaning of Christmas. (I wrote that story for my sister and she cried.)

Do you have a favorite chapter, story, or poem in the book?
As an adult, I am an Episcopalian and I take the reader from Advent (liturgical season before Christmas) all the way to Epiphany (liturgical season after Christmas) in this book. January 6, 2021 was Epiphany—it was also the day insurrectionists stormed our nation’s Capital. I had to dedicate a chapter to that unbelievable day even though it made this a political statement. My favorite poem is “Christmas at the Horners’” where I share my childhood Christmas Eve experience with a multitude of cousins, and my paternal granddad takes center stage.

How did you choose the book’s title?
One of the humorous poems in the book, “My Hair on Fire,” is where the title of the book originated. It tells of my childhood memory of being in a Christmas pageant at our small community church, and the angel behind me got too close and caught my hair on fire. To this day, I chuckle at the matter-of-fact manner our Sunday School teacher handled it and the show went on!

What was your favorite part of putting this project together?
Vellum offered a new feature: adding a heading background and I jumped on it. It appears on the first page of every chapter, so I added a pine cone and branch and I loved how it dressed up the paperback copy.

Of the seven books you’ve published, which one was the most challenging and which was the easiest or most enjoyable to write?
The most challenging was Just Another Square Dance Caller: Authorized Biography of Marshall Flippo because I had to be sure of the accuracy of it. I had forty hours of recorded interviews I transcribed. So, I ended up with 258,000 words and had to cut it back to about 70,000. But what a privilege it was to tell this amazing man’s life story.

The easiest and most enjoyable book was the first one, This Tumbleweed Landed, because I didn’t know better—it was my introduction into the self-publishing world—and being the first made it a true delight! I have a masters in computers, so I not only enjoy the writing of the book, but the actual layout too.

What do you want to be known for as an author?
I tell authentic stories and write poetry about a life that exists no more. All of my books deal with a positivity in life even if there are trials and tribulations along the way.

What are your strengths as a writer?
I love to write and never have experienced writer’s block. In fact, I have about ten books in the queue. Being an English major, I have a strong background in the classics and I love to read. Also, I fell in love with Natalie Goldberg’s free writing and used that in my classroom and still use it today. Poetry has become my genre of choice and I feel my soul leaks out in my writing, and I discover new truths in every poem.

Why do you think people like reading memoirs and biographies?
Readers can put themselves into the stories easier than any other genres. They read about an experience, an emotion, and connect with the writer. Memoirs/biographies are truly an escape from this world into the real world of someone else who has conquered or mastered some trial or tribulation. That winning becomes the readers as they devour the page.

What is the best compliment you’ve received as an author?
“When I read your books, I feel like I’m sitting across the kitchen table from you, talking!” I love that!

Do you have writing projects you’re working on now?
I am working on book one of a three-book poetry series entitled Was It a Dream: Navigating Life’s Journey Through Poetry. The first book of this series starts with a poem written in 1986, my first poem about a trek into the jungle of Mexico to the Mayan Indian ruin of Coba. That volume ends with a poem about 9/11/2001, a day we all will never forget.

KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. Kat has a speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.



An Interview with Author Jeff Otis

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Jeff Otis is an award-winning author and humorist whose short stories have been published in several anthologies. He branched into novel-length work with a science fiction debut, Raptor Lands: The Story of the Harrowing Return of the Dinosaurs (March 2024), that reviewers call “a captivating read” and “a thrilling adventure filled with dinosaurs, intricate plot twists, and a mix of compelling characters.” You’ll find Jeff on his website at JeffOtisAuthor.com and on Facebook.

What would you like readers to know about the story you tell in Raptor Lands?
Cantor, a paleontologist, and Kumiko, a geneticist, team up with a brilliant computer scientist named Arthur at Los Alamos. Together they determine which dormant genes in chickens and eagles were once active in dinosaurs and what those genes did. Then they activate them inside bird embryos. No mosquitos in amber. Cantor and Kumiko want to study dinosaur behavior and have no interest in making money. They move from Berkeley to New Mexico, where they set up a ranch with different areas allocated separately to the five big dinosaurs they brought with them (hence the name Raptor Lands). All the dinosaurs are of a type that lived 125 million years ago. But something went wrong. The dinosaurs were meant to be small. They aren’t.

What unique challenges did this work pose for you?
I had to balance the sub-plots around the main plot. When a sub-plot changed, it was like removing a specific thread from a rug and replacing it. That’s what I get for being a pantser. But the action and dialogue are fresh, gripping, and sometimes humorous. The book took two years to write, but it was spread over six years. Since this is my debut novel, there were challenges inside challenges.

Tell us a little about your main protagonists. Who (or what) are the antagonists in the story?
The main protagonists are Cantor, Kumiko, and their son, George. George is a special kid and his parents worry about him. He starts off as a bit of a bumbler with emotional problems. Later he shines. Without giving too much away, the antagonist (a powerful and dangerous oligarch) uses fear and money to cause errant genes to be placed in some of the dinosaurs, making them extraordinarily vicious. The meaner and bigger the dinosaur, the more money billionaires will pay. It’s a status thing. The dinosaurs were characters with their own personalities. One dinosaur named Mako was definitely an antagonist and some of the most intense actions centers around him.

Why did you choose New Mexico as a setting for the book?
I write what I know. I know a lot about dinosaurs, evolutionary biology, some genetics, humor, and New Mexico. The best place for a dinosaur ranch is away from people and cities. It had to be New Mexico.

Is there a scene in Raptor Lands that you’d love to see play out in a movie?
There is a chapter where two hapless and uniformed guys break into the ranch to steal a male and a female offspring that are about the size of a turkey. They are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Moms don’t like it when you steal their children. It would be chilling to see this on the big screen.

What makes this novel unique in the speculative fiction market?
It isn’t another Jurassic Park, but the genre is similar. The characters are unique, and I don’t know of another dinosaur novel that lets the reader get to know the dinosaurs like this one except Raptor Red by Robert T. Bakker.

What was the most rewarding aspect of putting this project together?
When I’m writing, I’m in my own world. My characters become real. Their adventures, fears, loves, anger are all real to me. I never have writer’s block. Every day I couldn’t wait to find out what would happen to Cantor, Kumiko, George, and other characters.

What lessons did you learn in writing/publishing your first novel that you can apply to future projects?
Agents are difficult to get and trying to find one involves an incredible amount of work. Never bore your audience. Keep them on the edge of their seats. Be sure readers are invested in your characters. Show don’t tell. Edit. Edit. Edit.

Besides being an author, you’re also an oil painter. Does painting affect your writing creativity?
No, but I did use 25 of my own drawings in the book. I’m also illustrating my second book.

What advice do you have for writers who are still striving for publication?
Hang in there. Keep trying. Expect rejection and don’t take it personally.

What writing projects are you working on now?
I’m almost finished with a book involving love, loss, technological breakthroughs, and the tragic paths people take. In addition, I have completed two books in a YA series.

KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. Kat has a speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.



Author Update 2024: Sue Houser

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Award-winning author Sue Houser reveals elements of her home state of New Mexico in every fiction and nonfiction book she writes. Her newest release is Walter Steps Up to the Plate (Kinkajou Press, October 2023), a middle-grade historical novel in which baseball, 1920s Albuquerque, and Al Capone play major roles. You’ll find Sue on her website at SueHouser.com and on Facebook. Read more about her writing in SWW’s 2017, 2020, and 2023 interviews, and visit Amazon for all of her books.

What was your intent in writing Walter Steps Up to the Plate, and who did you write the book for?
During COVID, I read an article about Albuquerque in the early 1900s and how many people came to Albuquerque seeking a cure from tuberculosis. I wanted to convey to middle-grade readers that another pandemic years ago had interrupted children’s lives.

How did you develop your main character, Walter, from an ordinary twelve-year-old boy to a hero?
I modeled Walter after two grandsons who live near Chicago. Like other children, the boys attended school online, and their after-school activities, including orchestra and baseball, were suspended. My older grandson actually took a job delivering newspapers, as did Walter. Fortunately, no one in their family became seriously ill. In the story, I tried to show early Albuquerque through Walter’s eyes when he arrived from Chicago.

What decisions did you make about portraying historical figures or events in your story?
Al Capone was rumored to have visited friends at an exclusive resort in Jemez Springs in the 1920s. I tried to accurately describe Capone’s personality, mannerisms, and character. Capone was a Chicago Cubs fan, so I used baseball to develop his relationship with Walter.

Tell us how the book came together.
In my research of the tuberculosis pandemic, the year 1927 aligned with descriptions of the Chicago Cubs’ stadium, players, and games; the AT&SF Santa Fe Chief’s schedule and stops; and Al Capone’s reported visit to New Mexico. I drove up and down the streets of Albuquerque, studying historical buildings and street locations. I spent about two years researching, writing, and editing the book with my online critique group. I was fortunate that Artemesia Publishing (through its Kinkajou Press imprint) readily agreed to publish it, which was released in October 2023.

What makes this book unique in the chapter book market?
The story places “Scarface,” the Chicago crime boss, in Albuquerque and Jemez Springs, which is quite plausible.

Any “Oh, wow!” moments while doing research for Walter Steps Up to the Plate?
I was struck by downtown Albuquerque being so vibrant and thriving during the 1920s. I could feel the energy of optimistic entrepreneurs, railroad workers, and streetcar passengers.

I had not realized the economic impact that tuberculosis patients brought to the state with towns competing for the healthcare industry. I also learned of unconventional medical procedures, such as plombage surgery, where a portion of the lung is removed and replaced with Ping-Pong balls.

What was your favorite part of putting this project together?
I enjoyed developing Walter’s character. Although his family supported him, he felt responsible to care for his mother, making him seem older than twelve. But conflicts with his cousin and their eventual friendship allowed him to just be a kid.

Of all the fiction and nonfiction books you’ve written, which one was the most challenging, and which was the easiest (or most enjoyable) to write?
I can’t say any book was easy to write, but Walter Steps Up to the Plate was the most enjoyable. It required a lot of research to be historically factual but also allowed me creative freedom. The most challenging book for me was La Conquistadora: The Story of the Oldest Statue in the United States, a subject I wasn’t familiar with.

What writing projects are you working on now?
I am working on a picture book titled Goat for Rent about a little goat named Alfalfa who becomes a Yoga Goat for Rent. I am also researching a mining story to add to my middle-grade historical fiction books.

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
Thank you for this opportunity to share Walter Steps Up to the Plate. It is available from the publisher, Treasure House Books in Old Town, and Amazon.

KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. Kat has a speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.



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