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An Interview with Author Nick Pappas

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Award-winning journalist and editor Nick Pappas spent much of his 40-plus-year career in several New England states before taking the position of city editor at the Albuquerque Journal. After retiring, research into coal-mine catastrophes in northern New Mexico culminated in his debut release of Crosses of Iron: The Tragic Story of Dawson, New Mexico, and its Twin Mining Disasters (University of New Mexico Press, October 2023). You’ll find Nick on his website NickPappasBooks.com, on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter/X. Look for his book at all major retailers, including University of New Mexico Press and Amazon.

Crosses of Iron: The Tragic Story of Dawson, New Mexico, and its Twin Mining Disasters is a sad, but fascinating topic. What drew you to tell the story of these miners?
My wife Susan and I moved to Albuquerque from New Hampshire in June 2013 so I could start a new job at the Albuquerque Journal. As it turns out, the 100-year anniversary of Dawson’s 1913 mine disaster — the second deadliest in U.S. history — was commemorated that October with stories in the Journal, Santa Fe New Mexican, and other media outlets. At first, I was struck by the sheer horror of that incident (263 dead) and another explosion a decade later that claimed the lives of another 120 men. Over time, however, I came to realize there was so much more to Dawson’s history. Once I realized that former residents, descendants, and friends still gathered every other Labor Day weekend for a picnic reunion on the old townsite — nearly 70 years after the town shut down in 1950 — I was hooked. I began work on a narrative history of the old coal town after I retired in November 2018.

Please give our readers a glimpse of what Dawson, New Mexico was like in the early 1900s.
Once acquired by Phelps, Dodge & Company in 1905, Dawson became a model for coal towns across the Southwest, if not the country. Within a decade or so, Dawson was home to a 1,000-seat opera house, a large mercantile store than sent buyers to New York to acquire the latest furs and fashions, a state-of-the-art hospital and dispensary, full-service bank, top-notch schools, two churches, gymnasium, swimming pool and, at the time, the highest-elevation golf course in the nation. It also became a magnet for European immigrants from more than a dozen countries, as well as from China, Mexico, and Russia. And to hear former residents tell it, Dawson was a wonderful place to live, at least when measured against other coal camps of the day.

How accessible/plentiful was the information regarding these disasters when writing this story? Was there an oral history from descendants? How did families feel about their ancestor’s story finally being told?
I tried whenever possible to rely on primary documents, original newspaper accounts, and personal interviews. Among the source materials were annual territorial and state mine inspector reports, government documents and studies, company annual reports, industry research and newsletters, unpublished manuscripts, first-person accounts, and similar material. My biggest break was obtaining access to boxloads of company documents held today by the successor company to Phelps Dodge in Arizona. These materials included hundreds of pages of intracompany communications, letters, telegrams and the like specific to the 1913 mine disaster and its aftermath. As for families with ties to Dawson, they couldn’t have been more gracious in sharing their time, photographs and, in some cases, translations of letters and newspaper accounts from their native Greek and Italian.

What were some of the obstacles you faced while writing Crosses of Iron?
The first was the outbreak of COVID-19 roughly 14 months after I had begun my research. Fortunately, I already had visited most of the pertinent New Mexico archives and libraries before they shut down, though there were others outside of the state that I would have liked to visit. Otherwise, there were some iconic Dawson photographs I would have liked to include in the book, especially those related to the town’s closing in 1950, but I was never able to track down the original owner/source to use them. And then there was the discrepancy in the spelling of immigrant names, which many times differed markedly among ship manifests, census reports, military documents, company records and especially in newspaper accounts. When it came to listing the names of the 383 miners who died in the 1913 and 1923 mine disasters in the back of the book, I decided to go with the spellings contained in the official New Mexico mine inspector reports for those years, even though I knew from talking to families that at least some were not accurate.

You mentioned that you’re a native New Englander. Are there any stories from that area that you’ve been inspired to tell?
None immediately come to mind, but if I ever were to move back, I’d like to think I could find an overlooked or forgotten piece of history to pique my interest.

This would make a great documentary. Are there any plans for Crosses of Iron to make it to the big screen?
Not that I am aware. There was a serious effort a few years back by a Santa Fe-based company to produce a one-hour documentary told through the perspective of three immigrant communities. The documentary was to be filmed on location in New Mexico, Italy, Greece, and Mexico, but the project fell through due to a lack of funding.

What was your favorite part of putting this project together?
Probably the research, whether working with families, the always helpful custodians at the State’s archives and libraries, or seeking out old documents. To be honest, I was amazed at some of the material I was able to discover online too. Case in point: The 1904 edition of The Shield, a Phi Kappa Psi magazine that contained critical background information on a Brown University graduate who would later lose his life in the 1913 mine explosion. The pleasure that came from sharing with families previously unknown details about their loved ones was an added bonus.

Is there a particular path or routine you follow when working on a project of this nature?
This was my first book, so it was more a seat-of-the-pants exercise than a rigid adherence to tried and true rules. In my case, the path looked something like this: Research. Interview. Write. Rewrite. Edit. Edit. And then edit some more.

What’s next on your radar for writing projects?
I have a few ideas rooted in New Mexico history but nothing definite yet.

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
Only that Crosses of Iron is more than a disaster book. Given that most of the story is set in the first half of the 20th century, the book chronicles some key events in our nation’s history: the massive wave of European immigration that brought 20-million people to America between 1880 and 1920 (in its heyday, more than a dozen languages were spoken in Dawson), the Ludlow Massacre of 1914, the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-19, Prohibition, the rise of the American labor movement, World Wars I and II, and other important milestones. And the book concludes with onetime Dawson residents — including American labor icon Dolores Huerta — or those with a strong connection to Dawson sharing memories of their beloved coal town.

Su Lierz writes dark fiction, short story fiction, and personal essays. Her short story “Twelve Days in April,” written under the pen name Laney Payne, appeared in the 2018 SouthWest Writers Sage Anthology. Su was a finalist in the 2017 and 2018 Albuquerque Museum Authors Festival Writing Contest. She lives in Corrales, New Mexico, with her husband Dennis.



An Interview with Author Suzanne Stauffer

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Fueled by her love of reading, Suzanne Stauffer has had careers as a librarian, a professor of library science, and now as an author of historical fiction. Her debut novel, Fried Chicken Castañeda (March 2023), is the first book in her Courier series inspired by the Fred Harvey Southwestern Indian Detours that ran in New Mexico and Arizona from 1926 until the early 1940s. Look for Suzanne on her website CouriersSeries1926.com, and on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter/X.

What is your elevator pitch for Fried Chicken Castañeda?
In this genre-blending historical mystery served with a large helping of romance and sprinkled liberally with food porn, librarian Prudence Bates escapes her boring middle-class life and becomes embroiled with bootlegging, murder and romance at the Hotel Castañeda in Las Vegas, New Mexico in 1929.

Amazon categorizes the book as women’s crime fiction/historical fiction, as well as historical mystery, thriller and suspense fiction. Readers also call it a cozy mystery. If you didn’t have the limitations of Amazon categories, how would you characterize the book?
A journey of self-discovery wrapped in a historical culinary mystery.

How did the book come together?
The genesis was a trip to Grand Canyon five or six years ago where I saw an exhibit on the Couriers. I became engrossed in the history of the Fred Harvey company and the Southwestern Indian Detours. I started the book sometime in 2020 or 2021, but hadn’t really done much until a friend challenged me to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in 2021. I finished it during that month, then revised it with suggestions from friends over the next several months and finalized it sometime in 2022. I probably spent more time researching the history than I did writing the novel. I ultimately self-published it in March 2023.

Who are your main characters? What is it about Prudence that makes her a likeable and relatable protagonist?
Prudence Bates is a 25-year-old public librarian from Cleveland, Ohio. She’s had a comfortable, upper-middle class life to this point, and is bored stiff. I think most of us can remember that age, when we wanted excitement and adventure and romance before we settled down. She’s open to new experiences and new people. She can be thoughtless and tone-deaf and something of a snob, but she’s always willing to admit when she is wrong. She also lets her imagination run away with her. As with many librarians, she’s an observer and a bit of a pedant. In some ways, she’s a cipher. This is her journey of self-discovery.

Why is New Mexico the perfect setting for the book? How does the time period of the book impact the story and the characters?
Prudence has gone west to train as a “courier” for the Fred Harvey Southwestern Indian Detours, which ran from 1926 to the early 1940s. Just as Fred Harvey hired young women to work as waitresses in the Harvey Houses, the corporation hired young women to serve as guides for their automobile tours of the Southwest. The training took place at the La Fonda in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is inspired by courier Anita Rose’s promotional visit to Cleveland in 1929 and spends a week in Las Vegas, New Mexico in this book, expecting to learn everything there is to know about life in the Southwest. At the end of the week, she embarks on the three-day Las Vegas to Albuquerque Detour. Prohibition and bootlegging also play a role, and Las Vegas at that time was a hotbed of criminal activity.

During this time period, women had more freedoms than they had to that point. They had achieved the vote, they had access to fairly reliable contraception and to a college education, and they were entering the workforce in large numbers. It’s the period of the “New Woman.”

Tell us a few of the more interesting facts you discovered about the Fred Harvey couriers and the Southwestern Indian Detours.
They probably served as the model for the airline stewardesses who would come along a decade or so later. They had an identifiable uniform, they went through a rigorous six-week training program which covered geology, geography, history, anthropology, art, etc., and they were responsible for every aspect of the experience, including booking hotel rooms, paying for included meals, and assisting the driver (always a man) with car repairs, as well as the health and safety of the Detourists.

What was your favorite part of putting this project together?
This is going to sound silly, but I’m still excited at having discovered two books of paper dolls published around 2000, one of the Harvey Girls and one of the Couriers. They were created by Leslie Poling-Kempes, who wrote the definitive work on the Harvey Girls. Both books include entries from the diary of a (fictional) Harvey Girl. I referred to them for clothing ideas, in particular. I feel like a kid again when I page through them (they will NEVER be cut!).

Why did you chose Fried Chicken Castañeda as the title of the book?
Prudence stays at the Castañeda during the week that she’s in Las Vegas, and that was the signature dish of the Hotel Castañeda. I’ve included an updated recipe for it in an appendix.

How did your careers as a librarian and a professor of library science benefit your fiction writing?
I think it worked the other way. I became a librarian because I have always been an avid reader. My area of research as an academic is American library history, so I’ve learned a lot about how to research history.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
Well, as an academic, I am a writer, but of non-fiction that no one reads except my students when I assign it. As for fiction, I suppose I always have. I remember writing (bad) poems when I was in elementary school. I won a short story contest in junior high school and took creative writing in college. I belonged to a writing group when I was working as a librarian in New York, and I wrote quite a bit of fan fiction when I was a doctoral student, but I never seriously considered it as a career, because it’s so difficult to break into.

What is the best encouragement or advice you’ve received on your writing journey?
To follow your own voice and to be willing to listen to advice and criticism. That applies to nonfiction and fiction alike.

What writing projects are you working on now?
I’m working on the second volume of the Courier series. In this one, Prudence goes on the three-day Las Vegas to Albuquerque detour. They spend two nights at the La Fonda and the final night at the Alvarado (of blessed memory).

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
The Fred Harvey History Weekend, a fund raiser for the New Mexico History Museum, takes place every October at the La Fonda on the Plaza in Santa Fe. It’s being held October 27-30 this year, and I’ll be there!

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 and Poet David L. Harrison

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David L. Harrison is a best-selling, award-winning author and poet who has also been a musician, a scientist, an editor, and a businessman. He is the former poet laureate of Drury University and the current poet laureate of Missouri (2023-2025). His 106 published books include poetry, fiction, and nonfiction for young readers and educational books for teachers. In 2022, he published This Life: An Autobiography (Ozarks Book Series) that “chronicles the fits and starts, professional rejections and redirections, the inevitable personal life conflicts and tragedies, as well as the breakthroughs and triumphs in a career that has spanned seven decades…and is still going.” You’ll find David on his website DavidLHarrison.com, his blog, and on Facebook. His autobiography is available through Missouri State University at Ozarks Book Series, but the rest of his books can be found on his Amazon Author Page.

David, you’re an award-winning author. You even have a school named after you: The David Harrison Elementary School in Springfield, Missouri. And now, you’ve written This Life, An Autobiography. Please tell us why you wrote this book and why you choose this time in your life to write it.
Thank you for offering me this chance to say hello to friends and colleagues in SouthWest Writers. I’m delighted to be a member of this group of talented writers.

I didn’t plan to write a memoir. I sat in a theater audience one night and was highly entertained by a gifted young musician who told about his journey from a child who was attracted to music to the professional musician he had become. I wondered if I should do something like that. I, too, had taken a long, sometimes difficult journey from the time I wrote my first poem to become a well-published author and poet. Forty pages into a play script, I knew that the effort was headed toward disaster. I don’t have a playwright’s instincts. But rather than throw out weeks of work, I decided to go forward with a book about my writer’s journey. Someone, I hoped, would like to know how one person managed to go about it. This Life, An Autobiography was the result.

Having successfully written so many books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction for young readers, as well as educational books for teachers, is there a genre you haven’t tackled but are eager to try?
Now and then I wish I could write a series of stories, but my brain isn’t wired that way. I exhaust my supply of energy, originality, and patience for a given subject in a single effort. After that, my mind moves on to something else.

Were there any unexpected moments for you when writing This Life? Did you ever feel vulnerable revealing so much about yourself?
The first challenge was setting the boundaries of what I would include in the narrative of my life. Once I decided that this was to be an effort to trace my development as a writer, I passed on many memories that were important to me but which didn’t seem to touch on the main theme. Had I written the story of my life, instead of the story of how I became a writer, the vulnerability issue would have been more of a problem. In other words, I left out some of the good stuff. (:>

Tell us about your experience as Missouri’s Poet Laureate and what this experience means to you.
The Missouri Poet Laureate program, which began in 2006, features a new state poet laureate appointed by the governor every two years. I’d been nominated four times previously and this time I made it. I’m the first who identifies as a children’s poet to be chosen, so I’m delighted with the honor and the opportunity to meet people across our state. My first official appearance in my new role took place on September 8, 2023 in David Harrison Elementary School, which was named after me. Coming up are events in Kansas City at the Heartland Book Festival on October 6–7 and in St. Louis on April 6 to give a 2-hour poetry workshop for the St. Louis Writers Guild and general public. I expect to do a lot of traveling but will also take advantage of Zoom and other technology to reach as many as I can to read and write poetry and talk about how it enriches our lives.

I read that you started writing poetry at the age of six. Do you remember what inspired you to write your first poem and what it was about?
I wrote my first poem in a snit. We lived in Ajo, Arizona, a town not far from the Mexican border. My dad had come home from a fishing trip in Mexico and my mother was frying his catch on a skillet in the kitchen. That fish smelled SO good and I was SO hungry and I am sure I was SO much in her way. I found myself banished to the living room until she called me for dinner. I made up a poem to show how I felt.

Sometimes I wish
I had a fish
Upon a little dish.

How did you feel the first time you saw an illustrator’s interpretation of a story you created?
The first time you see how someone else imagined what you’ve imagined is a highlight in a writer’s life. For some reason, when I write about human characters, they don’t always materialize in my mind as whole people. They are symbols, personalities, metaphors. It takes an artist to be practical and say, “Come on, they have to look like something. How about like this?” I almost always love the surprise of meeting my characters face to face. I’m more at home with animals. I know what they look like!

After a six-decade writing career, is there anything you’d do differently if you started your writing and publishing journey today?
The easy answer is to say I would have avoided becoming a scientist, head of a block manufacturing company, and co-owner of a gift store specializing in crystals, porcelains, and china, and gone straight into writing, but I might not have wound up here. If I hadn’t touched those other bases along the way, I might have ended somewhere else, and, since I have few regrets about anything that happened down that rather crooked path, I think I’ll say I would walk it again.

Can you tell us about a time when you didn’t know if you would make it as an author and how you persevered?
The low point for me was toward the end of six long years of rejections. Only one guy — a professor at Drury who taught a writing course — had told me he thought I could become a writer. No one else had said that. Ever. To the contrary, editor after editor had told me by their actions that I was definitely not a writer. On one rejection letter, an editor had scribbled, “Are you kidding?” I came to feel like an utter failure. I was wasting my time. I was not a writer, was never going to be one. I simply didn’t have the talent for it. In This Life, I hesitated to describe those dismal years, filled with self-doubt and a growing sense of futility and failure. My decision to include the experience was based on two considerations: 1) it was the truth; it happened; it was part of my journey, and 2) I thought there might be other struggling writers out there who would understand what I went through and take heart.

With such a varied writing background, who are your favorite authors and how have they influenced your writing?
Among my favorites are Annie Proulx, Barbara Kingsolver, Joan Didion, John Irving, E. B. White, and Kurt Vonnegut. They’re all masters of knowing what they’re talking about before they start talking, and when they do begin, their voices are so distinctive that they hold our attention from beginning to end. My favorite authors of literature for young people are too numerous to mention here but my choices all have one thing in common. They use words like a palette of endless colors and they paint images with them that remain with us long after the printed story or poem or narrative ends. They bring literature to life. I try not to compare my developing manuscript to the so-so writers in the world. I hold my work up to the very best, sigh, and try harder to come closer.

Can you give us an update on when This Life: An Autobiography will be available more widely online?
Although the book is available through the Missouri State University site in Springfield at OzarksStudies.MissouriState.edu, ongoing efforts to connect with a major distributor for wider distribution through Amazon and other traditional outlets look promising. By the time you read this, terms may have been agreed on and become operational by the end of the year.

Su Lierz writes dark fiction, short story fiction, and personal essays. Her short story “Twelve Days in April,” written under the pen name Laney Payne, appeared in the 2018 SouthWest Writers Sage Anthology. Su was a finalist in the 2017 and 2018 Albuquerque Museum Authors Festival Writing Contest. She lives in Corrales, New Mexico, with her husband Dennis.



Author Update: J.R. Seeger

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J.R. Seeger uses his experience in the military and the CIA to write authentically about the workings of espionage. He is the author of the MIKE4 series, about a family who serves in the intelligence community from World War II to the present, and the Steampunk Raj books that follow the same family during World War I. The Enigma of Treason, published in 2023, is the third novel in the Raj series. You’ll find all of John’s books on his Amazon author page. Read more about his writing in his 2020 interview for SouthWest Writers.

The Enigma of Treason (and your Steampunk Raj series) is a significant departure from your MIKE4 novels. What are the differences between the series, as well as similarities?
The Raj series is designed to be historical fiction with the addition of Central Asian mysticism (or magical realism, as my publisher prefers to call it) as spice to the dish. I have dabbled in historical fiction before in my short stories set in colonial New Mexico, but this is full on historical fiction with historical figures and real events passing through the novels. The only real similarities with the MIKE4 novels are the nature of “the trade” (espionage) and the importance of intelligence operations in the larger canvas of conflict among nations. Of course, for those who have read the MIKE4 series, they will know that the antagonists in the Raj series are related to the protagonists in the MIKE4 series. That connection was underscored in the MIKE4 novel Graveyard for Spies and will be more apparent in the next Raj book.

Who are your main characters? Did they surprise you as you wrote their story? Will those who know you recognize you in any of your characters?
Enigma of Treason continues with the same characters in A School for the Great Game and A Sound like Distant Thunder. The Bankroft family and the O’Connell family are on opposite sides of the imperial battle for control of the Middle East. I worked to make both families believable and have tried to make Michael O’Connell’s transition from an isolated, lonely boy to a hardened enemy of the Raj credible. Probably the most curious character in the books is Chodak. He lives in a shadow world of demons or, perhaps, exclusively in the minds of the main characters. His periodic appearances in the novel did surprise me as I wrote them.

I have worked hard not to put myself in any of my books. I do use my experience with tribal leaders from throughout Central Asia to create believable characters caught in the middle of this conflict of Empires. In the MIKE4 series, there are many characters who resemble composites of real people.

What are the main settings in the book and how do they impact the story and the characters?
The story is set in Mesopotamia — a part of what we would call Iraq today — and in the borderlands between the Ottoman Empire and the Persian Empire. The region was important in World War I as it is today. It is the crossroads of trade and central to the growing dependence on Middle East oil. The strategic significance drew three empires — Ottoman, German, and British — into conflict. Agents of great powers will always be involved in conflict zones where resources are abundant and local political control is weak.

Tell us how the book came together.
The story has its origins in my personal interest in many of the real adventurers in the region during World War I. Most will recognize the name of TE Lawrence, but his work in the Hejaz (western Saudi Arabia and Jordan) was only one of many efforts by “oriental” experts working in support of the German and British militaries. Most of these characters have appeared in the Raj series and there will be others as the series progresses. It seemed only fitting to take my characters from earlier books and place them in Mesopotamia in 1915-1916.

As to the actual craft of writing: The Raj series takes about four months of academic research before I can assemble a plot. Once that is completed, all of my books follow a basic pattern: four–five months to write, another two–three months of editing and then another month of larger assembly/formatting. Mission Point Press has a terrific graphics team that creates the covers and my wife, Lise Spargo, a formally trained, botanical illustrator, agreed to provide the chapter illustrations. From start to finish, my books take about a year from writing the first chapter to their placement on Amazon.

Is there a scene in the Enigma of Treason that you’d love to see play out in a movie?
I have tried to make my stories vivid enough that readers can imagine them in a movie. I think the final confrontation in this book mixing face-to-face combat as well as combat in the mystic plain would be a most interesting scene.

All of your Steampunk Raj books have intriguing titles. How did you come up with the title for this third novel in the series?
The Enigma of Treason title was originally planned for a MIKE4 novel. However, I realized it was a far better match for the Raj series since we have many characters trying to understand how individuals make up their minds to commit treason. As a result, MIKE4 #7 became Playground for Ambition and Raj #3 became The Enigma of Treason. I suppose I am lucky to have attempted poetry which forces compression of an idea into a few words. So far, so good, eh?

What writing projects are you working on now?
I just submitted MIKE4 #8 to my publisher. We probably won’t get it out in time for Christmas, but it is good to see another plot finished and submitted. I already have about 1/4 of the next MIKE4 book written which is another retrospective story of the life of Peter O’Connell, senior. The material written is entirely a function of the fact that I had intended to embed the story into #8 and realized it was too cumbersome for me and, I suspect, for any future reader.

As I said earlier, the Raj series requires serious academic research to match my storyline with the real world. I am about halfway through that research for Raj #4, so that will be a project for the Fall. It will be complicated, because 1916 was such a pivotal moment in the Great War as well as in the history of the British Empire. I have one nonfiction article on the world of intelligence in 1941 that I am shopping to journals as well as an outline for another of my Inquisitor short stories. I always have at least two to three stories ongoing just as my desk and my bedside table always have two to three books.

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: William J. Fisher

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William J. Fisher retired from one career as an Air Force officer and another as an economic and land development planner, and now enjoys a third career as an author. His newest release, the historical crime novel The Price of the Sky: A Tale of Bandits, Bootleggers, and Barnstormers (April 2023), is based on the true story of “a young aviator turned reluctant bootlegger and bank robber who spends his life seeking redemption, clemency, and romance.” You’ll find Bill on his Amazon author page. Read more about his writing in his 2021 interview for SouthWest Writers.

The Price of the Sky is based on real people and events. What was it about Foster Bedford Jones that intrigued you enough to write a novel based on his life?
My wife Vicki and I knew Bedford Jones in the 70s and 80s until he died in 1990. He was especially a friend of Vicki’s family. Few knew the story of his early life in our small hometown until we had access to his personal papers after he died. We discovered some interesting items in these papers about his past. Years later, I did research on Bedford and found numerous newspaper articles about him, his brothers, and his criminal gang in Texas. I thought his story would make a good crime novel.

What is your main character’s greatest flaw and his most endearing quality?
Bedford’s flaws were that he drank and gambled too much. But his biggest flaw was that he hung out with criminals and bad influences. His most endearing qualities were his skills as a pilot, his love of flying, and his determination.

How did the book come together?
I had some of the source material for many years. When I finished my first book Cruel Road, I started the heavy research on The Price of the Sky, which took about six months. The actual writing took about a year. I had two outside editors: a developmental editor and a copy editor. Editing took about four months. Vicki was my proofreader. I designed the cover.

What were the most challenging aspects of completing this book?
I find that editing and rewriting are the most challenging. Also, since this is mostly a true story, I had to balance the facts with the fiction and drama to make it interesting to the reader.

Any “Oh, wow!” moments while doing research for The Price of the Sky?
There were plenty of “Oh, wow!” moments. When I discovered that Bedford had robbed banks, had belonged to a gang of about twenty robbers, bootleggers, and murderers, and had two brothers that had been in prison for murder and robberies, I thought that nobody in my hometown really knew this man. The other moment was when I discovered he had five wives, and his second wife was a prominent woman with political connections in Indiana who helped him get a pardon from the Governor of Indiana.

What is it about historical fiction that draws you to it as an author?
I got into historical fiction by chance. I wanted to write and had historical material for sources of drama, mystery, action, romance, and adventure. I then used my intuition and imagination to write a good story. Cruel Road is based on the true story of my 6th great grandparents in colonial Pennsylvania. The Price of the Sky is the true story of someone I knew in my hometown in Indiana. Both books are personal.

What writing projects are you working on now?
I have two projects in the early conceptual phases. One is a contemporary novel set in modern Indian Country. I spent nearly 12 years working for two New Mexico Pueblo tribes as a planner and business development specialist. I was exposed to areas of the tribe that many non-Indians know little about. I want to write about native culture and issues on the reservations. There are so many stories in tribes often unknown to the public.

The future book may be science fiction. I have often thought about writing science fiction but have just started to think about plots, settings, characters, etc. I am looking for something unique.

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 Lynne Sebastian

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Retired archaeologist Lynne Sebastian is a published author of nonfiction books, research papers, and journal articles who now considers herself a storyteller. After switching from nonfiction to creative writing, she published stories in the 2021 SouthWest Writers’ contest anthology, Ramblings & Reflections, and in Holes in Our Hearts: An Anthology of New Mexican Military Related Stories and Poetry (2023). Besides being a short story and nonfiction writer, she can also call herself a novelist since her 2023 debut release of One Last Cowboy Song. You’ll find Lynne on her SWW author page and on Facebook. Look for Lynne’s books on Amazon.

Please tell us about yourself.
I grew up in southern Michigan, but my family all live in the mountains of eastern Kentucky and have lived in those hills and hollers for many generations. I always wanted to live in the West, and I have had the great fortune of doing so for 50 years, the last 42 of those years here in New Mexico. My husband and I came to Albuquerque in 1980 so that I could enter the PhD program in Anthropology at University of New Mexico, and somehow, we never left. We have lived in Corrales, New Mexico since 1998.

In my archaeology career, I carried out fieldwork in all the Four Corners states and served as the New Mexico State Archaeologist and as the New Mexico State Historic Preservation Officer. I also had the honor of being elected as President of the Society for American Archaeology and as President of the Register of Professional Archaeologists. For the last 15 years before I retired in 2016, I worked as a consultant and expert witness on historic preservation issues for clients throughout the United States.

Tell us about your recent release, One Last Cowboy Song. How did you come up with the idea?
Funny you should ask. For several years, I have been in a creative writing critique group. One of the short stories that I shared with them was about a couple who would seem to have nothing in common and be unlikely ever to have met. And if they did meet, one would not necessarily expect them to have gotten along very well. The short story took place several years after they not only met, but fell in love and created a shared life that is unconventional but brings them great happiness.

My critique group colleagues said, “Oh! We like this story, and we love these characters. You should write more about them.” Flattered, I wrote a second short story about these same characters, and the group said, “This is great! But we want to know more, like how did they meet? And what is her backstory? And….” Soon, I realized I was writing a novel, and I had started in the middle. Which is not a process I recommend.

Where do you draw inspiration for your characters and settings?
My settings are, at least so far, versions of real places. One Last Cowboy Song is set in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado, which is an area that I love very much. I’ve traveled quite a bit, and I’ve experienced so many wonderful, vivid, special places in this world. I’ve never felt any need to create a place in which to set a story, although I really admire people who can imagine whole worlds and bring them to life.

As for characters, they tend to be composites — imagined people who incorporate some aspects or characteristics of real people, often multiple people, that I have known. For example, one night as I was working on a piece of dialog spoken by the best friend of my male lead character, a rancher named Dale, I realized that every time I wrote or read Dale’s dialog, I was hearing in my head the voice of an old friend, an archaeologist who lives in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Dale doesn’t look anything like my friend, and his life experiences are very different, but their voices and way of talking are identical. I’ve no idea why.

What typically comes first for you: A character? A story idea?
I’d have to say that the story idea comes first and that the story idea often comes with a character, or characters, already attached.

When did you realize you wanted to write western romance?
I didn’t. This book would be characterized that way, I guess, because he’s a rancher and she’s an English professor, and it is — at its heart — a love story. But it’s also a story about the way childhood trauma can create patterns of behavior that work against our happiness throughout a person’s adult life. And it’s a story about resilience in the face of loss and grief. And about the way country and western music can capture a moment and carry with it a memory.

Do you think your previous occupation as an archaeologist working in New Mexico influenced your choice of genre?
No. My love for the West and its people predates my life as an archaeologist. But stay tuned for my next book. It is about being an archaeologist working in New Mexico.

What did you find most rewarding when writing One Last Cowboy Song?
Interesting question. My first thought was “FINISHING IT.” But that’s not really true. I did much of the work during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was a wonderful escape being able to slip away from the reality of life during that time and live for a few hours with Virgil and Amanda and all the other characters in beautiful landscapes and happier times (depending on how one experienced the mid-1990s).

Tell us how and why you chose the title of the book.
There is a country and western song called “The Last Cowboy Song” that was co-written and sung by the late Ed Bruce who was one of my favorite singer/songwriters. The song plays in the background at two key moments in the story, and the sense that Virgil and Dale are part of a dying breed and of a way of life that is passing on into history lingers in the background.

What prompted your first writing project?
I discovered that I’m really bad at painting. No, I’m serious. My plan was to take up painting with watercolors when I retired. I made a gallant effort, but finally had to admit that I have no talent for visual arts. Fortunately, just about the time I faced this ugly truth, I was taking a Writing Memoir class at UNM Continuing Ed, and a very nice lady in the class told me she thought I had a talent for creative writing and asked me if I would be interested in joining a critique group of which she was a member. Which brings me to the next question….

What is the best encouragement or advice you’ve received in your writing journey?
Join a critique group. The regular feedback, the gentle but firm critiques of other writers, the camaraderie (even when we were stuck meeting on Zoom), and especially the structure provided by having to produce something to share every two weeks were all essential to getting me through the process of writing three drafts of a novel-length work.

Would you mind sharing with us what you’re working on now?
Something very different. It is a combination memoir/creative nonfiction story about an archaeological project south of Farmington, New Mexico, in which my husband and I participated in 1981. It has it all — humor, pathos, danger, miserable weather, unique characters, unforgettable dogs, and cool stuff about archaeology. And like my first book, this work is the result of my having written a short story about an experience with a flash flood that we had on the project. And once again, my critique group colleagues said, “Oh, we like this! But we want to know more about these characters and why you were digging there and weren’t there any dogs in the field camp? And….” So, watch for another book-length work that will, hopefully, be finished this winter. Current working title is Stories from the Field: Archaeology and the Waterflow Mine.

Su Lierz writes dark fiction, short story fiction, and personal essays. Her short story “Twelve Days in April,” written under the pen name Laney Payne, appeared in the 2018 SouthWest Writers Sage Anthology. Su was a finalist in the 2017 and 2018 Albuquerque Museum Authors Festival Writing Contest. She lives in Corrales, New Mexico, with her husband Dennis.



Author Update 2023: Patricia Walkow

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Patricia Walkow is an award-winning editor and author of fiction and nonfiction including magazine articles and newspaper columns, essays and short stories, and memoir and novels. Her newest release is Life Lessons from the Color Yellow (February 2023), a story collection of people and events who have influenced her life. You’ll find Pat on her website at PatriciaWalkow.com, on Facebook, and her Amazon author page. Read more about her writing and editing projects in her 2016 and 2020 interviews for SouthWest Writers.

What is at the core of this memoir collection?
This collection of stories represents significant people, events, and places that have shaped me. It is not an autobiography, but a collection of separate stories from my childhood through the present day. I have learned something about life from each of these stories, not only as I lived them, but also, years later, as I wrote them.

Which story in the book means the most to you? Which one revealed something unexpected as you wrote it? Give us a one-sentence description of each story.
“Golden Meadow” holds a special place in my heart, as it tells the tale of sharing my youthful dreams and aspirations with two friends, all in the encompassing embrace of a beautiful meadow. What surprised me was how difficult, emotionally, it was for me to write “My Mother’s Kitchen.”

“Mr. Howard’s Roses” — a school-age child learns how to care for roses. Lesson learned: Friendships happen between people even when they are quite different from each other, and there are things in life worth fussing over.

“The Dog Against the Yellow Wall” — a dog photographed by the author turns out to be almost identical to the dog she adopted many years later. Lesson learned: Serendipities exist in this world. Enjoy them without analyzing them.

“Sunny” — the author encounters a woman who always wears yellow. Later on, she finds out why. Lesson Learned: Despite terrible things that can happen to a person, it is ultimately a choice to be happy.

“Lemon Love” — some relationships are intense and beautiful, but cannot last. Lesson Learned: Always be true to yourself.

“My Mother’s Kitchen” — a dysfunctional family forever affects your life. Lesson learned: You can get beyond the issues of your childhood.

“The Promise of the Yellow Box” — when life gives you a gift, make the most of it. Lesson learned: Make your choices reflect your hopes and dreams rather than your fears.

“The Estate Sale” — a young woman comes across an estate sale and realizes she would have enjoyed knowing the person who once owned the house. Lesson Learned: Seize the moment to make a new friend.

“Golden Meadow” — three teenage girls bond during weekly hikes through a meadow as they share their hopes and dreams for the future. Lesson Learned: Friendships on the cusp of adulthood are among the most precious.

Why did you decide to write short pieces as opposed to a longer-length memoir?
From my past, I wanted to distill specific people and events that helped form the person I am today. As a result, I wrote the book as a set of discrete short stories, unrelated to each other, rather than creating a flowing set of chapters in sequential order over a long arc of time. I know this approach is not the typical way of writing a memoir, but it is the method I found satisfying.

What was the most challenging aspect of putting this project together?
The most challenging part of writing this piece was deciding which events and people helped form me into the person I am today.

Tell us about the book’s connection to the color yellow.
As I wrote, the color yellow surfaced over and over in my stories. It is not as though I was seeking out the color…or any color at all. Yellow simply turned out to be an integral part of each story and revealed itself as my teacher over the years. It was a surprise to me.

What do you love about your writing in this book?
Writing each story reconnected me to parts of myself, to people, to places I had not thought about in years.

What writing projects are you working on now?
I coauthored Alchemy’s Reach with SouthWest Writers’ member Chris Allen. It is a murder/mystery with a romantic undertone set in southern New Mexico’s Sacramento Mountains. It was published by Austin Macauley on August 18, 2023 and is available in paperback, e-book, and audiobook.

Another project I’m working on is The Far Moist End of the Earth. It’s a literary novel about a young widow who volunteers to work at a Methodist mission in Siam in the early 1900s. Prejudice, limitations on women’s lives, and multicultural appreciation are the key themes in the book. It is scheduled to be distributed to beta readers by the end of 2023.

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 2023: Cornelia Gamlem

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Speaker, consultant, and award-winning author Cornelia Gamlem is an expert in employee relations and human resources. Along with her co-author Barbara Mitchell, Cornelia has published six business resource books. Their latest collaboration is The Decisive Manager: Get Results, Build Morale, and Be the Boss Your People Deserve, released by Career Press (March 2023). Visit Cornelia at BigBookofHR.com and MakingPeopleMatter.blogspot.com, as well as on Facebook and LinkedIn. You’ll find all of her books on her Amazon author page. Read more about her writing in her 2019 and 2021 interviews for SouthWest Writers.

What would you like readers to know about The Decisive Manager?
Most of the issues an organization has are people issues—issues and situations that must be properly and promptly addressed and managed. Doing so is not an easy endeavor. People issues can be complicated because every person is a unique individual, and there is not necessarily a one-size-fits-all approach that a manager can take. Even the most experienced managers can be surprised by a new situation leaving them feeling vulnerable.

Why did you choose this particular topic to write about and why was this the best time to publish the book?
Managing people is not the responsibility of the HR department, and people management issues constantly challenge front-line managers. We wrote a similar book for managers, The Manager’s Answer Book, in 2018 that included topics across the whole spectrum of management. After publishing the 10-year anniversary edition of The Big Book of HR in 2022, we realized that a book for managers dedicated to people issues would complement both of these books. We wanted a resource for managers to turn to, especially those without an HR department like small business owners, to help with those vexing issues.

During and after the pandemic in 2020, so much about the workplace changed. That was one of our challenges writing The Big Book of HR during 2020 and early 2021. We watched so many new issues arise. The timing was right for addressing these issues. Each section of The Decisive Manager has a subsection for “Navigating the Changing Workplace.”

In a previous interview for SWW you mentioned that you and your co-author (Barbara Mitchell) “divided the work according to our respective areas of expertise then stayed out of each other’s way.” What particular expertise did each of you contribute to The Decisive Manager?
We organized The Decisive Manager around the same sections in The Big Book of HR. We’ve both had years of experience in all functions of human resources, but our individual focuses have been different. Barbara’s expertise and strength is clearly in the area of talent management, “Finding and Hiring the Best Talent.” My expertise and strengths are in the areas of employee relations and compliance, “Understanding Policy and Practices” and “Avoiding Legal Pitfalls,” another subsection. “Creating a Positive Employee Experience” speaks to both of our areas of expertise as well as our passions about creating positive workplace environments for employees and managers alike.

As for the other areas that we address, “Paying and Rewarding Employees,” “Helping Employees Grow and Develop,” and “Ensuring Graceful Endings,” we both brought a great deal of our respective experiences and knowledge.

The sub-title of the book is Get Results, Build Morale, and Be the Boss Your People Deserve. How did you narrow down these managerial goals from what must have been dozens of possibilities?
Our experience continues to show us that organizations—across all sectors of the economy, industries and size—don’t prepare individuals to manage people—the most critical parts of their management responsibilities. This is especially true when they promote people. They take the best technician or widget maker, promote them to be in charge of others and expect them to succeed. Too often these individuals have the best intentions but lack the skills, experience and knowledge to manage people. Their missteps can tear down morale and interfere with productivity. These were the observations that resulted in our focusing on those three management goals.

Did what-if questions help shape this work?
In a sense, yes. Perhaps not so much “what if” but “what do you do when?” or “how do you?” We relied on situations from our collective experiences as a starting place—those evergreen issues that managers struggle with. We also read a great deal about the emerging challenges, many associated with remote and distributed workforces. For example, with so many employees working from make-shift offices during the pandemic, how can employers make sure those arrangements are ergonomically safe.

The biggest challenges we read about and researched were how to keep remote and hybrid workforces motivated and essentially ‘be the boss [all] your people deserve.’ It can be like walking a tightrope for a manager to make sure they are addressing and meeting the needs of all their team members whether they work from home or in the same physical office as the manager.

Any “Oh, wow!” moments while doing research for the book?
Absolutely, especially in the areas of navigating the changing workplace. We had done some work with a company that specializes in using mobile communication methods, such as text messaging, that captures the preferences of younger workers. It was really interesting to learn some of the things that can be done with communication using mobile technology—everything from onboarding employees to learning and development. It really streamlines processes. Another area was microlearning that ties directly with mobile technology. It’s small learning units and short learning activities that can be done from anywhere using mobile devices. It’s very revolutionary.

What writing projects are you working on now?
We’re investigating other areas for getting our messages out. We’ve entered into strategic partnerships with some on-line business platforms and are investigating another with a global reach. I’ve also developed a relationship with Authority Magazine, an on-line business publication through Medium and have had several articles and interviews printed there.

We’re contemplating doing some short e-books that complement our current books. The objective is to both cross-market existing books and get messages out faster. I’m dusting off an old manuscript on the topic of workplace diversity. It’s become a timely topic again and there are now more opportunities and methods for getting that message out into the world.

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 Poet Gayle Lauradunn

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Gayle Lauradunn is an award-winning poet whose work has appeared in numerous journals as well as national and international anthologies. Some of her poems have also been included in art gallery exhibits and adapted for the stage. Her third poetry collection, The Geography of Absence (Mercury HeartLink, August 2022), prompted one reviewer to write: “Open this collection to the first poem—or to any poem—and lose yourself in words that matter.” Look for Gayle’s book on Amazon.

Tell us how and why you chose the title of your poetry book The Geography of Absence.
When I was camping in the Sahara I was struck by the immensity of the space and the gigantic proportions of the sand dunes that seemed to creep across the landscape. The sheer vastness. I wondered what was absent in that huge emptiness. Then we spied a brown speck in the distance between dunes and went toward it, and it turned out to be a large Berber tent, probably large enough to hold 80-100 people. But there was only an old woman and her 3-year-old grandson napping beside her. She invited us in and talked with our guide, who translated for us, carding and spinning the camel wool contained in a large bag beside her the entire time we were there. There was nothing else in the tent, not even cooking utensils, and I still wonder who or what was absent. That experience led me to become aware of absence throughout our lives. The poet Morgan Parker has said, “Absence implies a memory of what once took place.”

Your book cover has interesting details with randomly placed blocks, giving a fractured appearance. Is it representative of what this poetry collection is about?
Yes. I originally thought I wanted a photo of large sand dunes with a broad sky but could not find anything. I asked my friend Scott Wiggerman, who is both poet and artist, if he could suggest something. He sent me what he had posted on his website. Of the many items there, I kept going back to this piece even though it is not the kind of art I generally like. I went to Scott’s house to view the original and asked him what he was thinking when he created the piece. He said he was thinking about what was absent between the blocks. When he said the piece was untitled, I suggested we call it “absences” to which he agreed.

You mentioned that you write poetry to learn about the world and to learn more about who you are. What things can you share with your readers about your discoveries?
The process of writing poetry is organic for me. I begin with a vague thought, an idea, a landscape, etc., and write the first line, whatever occurs to me. The poem writes itself; I never know where it is going or how it will end. I don’t think ahead. I let it be what it seems to want to be. It’s similar to traveling to a culture that is different from ours, a landscape that is different, a different language. The absence of my own culture surrounding me is provocative and causes me to view the world in a new way. I’ve taken ten trips with a company that focuses on going off the beaten path. It’s the reason I rarely travel to Europe which is our heritage. I prefer places like Mongolia and Bhutan. After hiking up 12,000 feet in the Annapurna Mountains in Nepal, we had lunch in a tiny village and visited one of the homes. The woman had a television set and later I asked our guide what the people thought about how different much of the world is from their lives. He responded that they think what is on television are fairy tales.

In your book description of The Geography of Absence you question the validity of memory. Can you elaborate? Do you find freedom with this prospect when it comes to writing, or is vague memory more of a hindrance?
Memory, vague or clear, allows me to write both the actual event and infuse it with imagination. Whatever the memory, imagination expands it, enhances it to get to the meaning of what really occurred.

What sort of decisions do you make when putting a poetry collection together?
Good question, one I’m dealing with right now as I work on the order of my next collection. The Geography of Absence and my first book, Reaching for Air, were both much easier as the poems lent themselves to sections. My second book, All the Wild and Holy: A Life of Eunice Williams 1696-1785, is a book-length persona poem which I wrote chronologically as I followed her life. This current manuscript has a central six-part poem which is the focus of the collection. My struggle is how to arrange the other poems around this one. All the other poems reflect the central idea in the long one and that is what I need to keep in mind as I organize them.

For someone new to poetry, can you recommend where they might start reading?
It depends on what kind of poetry you want to write: open or formal. Today there seems to be more call from publishers for the latter. I find much of it fairly boring as the traditional forms do not fit our contemporary language, which causes the poet to focus on the form rather than what is being said. People are inventing new forms such as the golden shovel and calling a single line a haiku. I’m a storytelling poet, so content is more important to me than form. I do occasionally write a form poem, such as a pantoum, but I am rarely satisfied with them as the content often becomes distorted to fit the form. Some poets write a sonnet which you would not recognize as such because they are more interested in content than form. For form poetry, start with Shakespeare and improvise on his sonnets. For open, start with Denise Levertov and Gwendolyn Brooks. Galway Kinnell wrote both open and formal.

How important is accessibility of meaning? Should a reader have to work to understand a poem, or should readers find their own meaning?
I have been giving readings since 1970. In the early days, I experienced an awakening when after a reading, people would come up to me and say such things as “I love your poem about….” or “I understood your poem X as I had a similar experience.” In such cases I had no idea to which poems they were relating as I did not see what they said in any of the poems. That taught me that when we write, if we are open and not tightly controlling, people can get inside any poem that speaks to their own experiences. All we must do is write from within ourselves, organically. I remember one of my high school English teachers taking us through ten unbearable weeks of poetry. She invariably asked such nonsense questions as “What does the word the on the third line mean?” I doubt if even the poet knew. Readers should let the poem speak to them and not try to control it. Poems are a gift to allow people to find their own meanings.

Do you have a favorite poet? Someone who inspired you along the way?
Too many poets to choose just one. My early influences were William Blake, Walt Whitman, Denise Levertov, Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Hayden, Galway Kinnell, C.K. Williams, and the early poems of Louise Glück.

What do most well-written poems have in common?
A broad and deep knowledge of craft. Learn it and then you can toss it away. It will be part of you and you will use it without being conscious of doing so.

Su Lierz writes dark fiction, short story fiction, and personal essays. Her short story “Twelve Days in April,” written under the pen name Laney Payne, appeared in the 2018 SouthWest Writers Sage Anthology. Su was a finalist in the 2017 and 2018 Albuquerque Museum Authors Festival Writing Contest. She lives in Corrales, New Mexico, with her husband Dennis.



Author Update 2023: Joyce Hertzoff

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Author Joyce Hertzoff writes mystery and speculative fiction for middle grade, young adult, and adult audiences. She has written three fantasy series (completed or in the works)—the Crystal Odyssey set of four novels, the ongoing Portal Adventures, and the new More Than Just Survival books. Her newest release is Train to Nowhere Somewhere: Book 1 of the More Than Just Survival Series (July 2023). You’ll find Joyce on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, as well as on her blog HertzoffJo.blogspot.com and website at FantasyByJoyceHertzoff.com. For more about Joyce and her writing, visit her SWW author page and follow the links to previous interviews. Visit Amazon for all of her books.

Train to Nowhere Somewhere follows a group of passengers stranded in rural Missouri after their train derails. At its heart, what is the book about?
This is a book about survival, about taking what we know and recreating a new modern world after disaster, to rebuild with the hopes of an improved life. It is also about found families, the strangers we come to embrace because of shared experiences. Third, it’s about small-town life in farm country.

You had some trouble winnowing down your POV characters to a manageable number. What was that process like and who did you keep to tell the story?
Early critiquers found twelve POV characters a bit too much, even though each had something to contribute, a viewpoint that was unique and an interesting history. Spoiler alert: after the first novel, I envisioned the second would involve two groups splintered off to find answers while the main group continues to build a new community. Each group needed at least two people to tell what happened to them. Because of this, I needed to establish the goals and viewpoints of seven of the forty people stranded in book one. Those seven included one couple, two people who’d been at odds even before the story started, and a retired doctor, a lawyer turned cook, and one of the train attendants.

Tell us about the journey from inspiration to completed book for this first in a new series.
This book, like a few other stories I’ve written, began in a class I took as part of an online MFA program. The class was called Maps, and we were to take our characters on a journey, both physical and metaphorical. My characters’ journey hit a snag due to the collapse of a railroad trestle. From there, my imagination took off, as it often does, in the form of a more widespread disaster.

How did you go about choosing the title and subtitle?
The title for this one refers to their train journey which ended in a kind of nowhere, but also to the fact that they turned it into a somewhere. The subtitle refers to the entire series, which is all about survival and how that can take unexpected turns.

What makes Train to Nowhere Somewhere unique in the dystopian market?
Is it dystopian? Maybe. I think of it as near future. When I describe it to people, often they say, “That could happen.” I hope not. We’re too dependent now on being able to communicate with people far away and to have reliable electricity in our homes. In this book, I never say what caused the disaster, although there is speculation.

What was your favorite part of putting this project together?
Doing research on wind generators and other aspects of the story. It was fun to learn new facts and find a way to incorporate them into the story. Also developing the characters was fun, the threads about knitting as a useful skill, working out some logistics.

Any new writing projects in the works?
As always, I have several. Besides the second and third books of the More Than Just Survival series, I’m working on: book three in my Portal Adventures series; a series of stories about a girl who’s exiled from her domed town; a murder mystery that takes place in 19th century England; a group of stories about a family that acts as couriers between planets of a system settled by people from Earth; two or three murder mysteries; the story I just workshopped about a boy who wants to work on a time travel machine while his parents want him to help at their dig in the desert near an extinct volcano; and my favorite, a story about two girls from Tucson who manage to time travel to 1873 Arizona and are accused of murdering a merchant. There are probably more projects but these are ones I’m actively working on.

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
I’ll be selling my books at assorted venues throughout the fall. Watch for announcements of when those will take place.

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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