Two Writers Talk through the ages

Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness. And they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy... or they become legend.
Jim Harrison


Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.
H. L. Mencken

The real Legend of the Fall

Like most legends this one is purely fictional. The core character,General William Ludlow, never settled in Montana on a ranch near Choteau, had three Bonanzaesque sons who fought in WWI , a wife in Boston and a globetrotting wayward son Tristan played by a younger Brad Pitt so ably. Jim Harrison sure fooled me. I never thought to look until finishing the 1979 novella last night.

Like the great novelist he is, he made it up.

The Future of American Literature

Above all, I want you to expand your horizons and set sail for something bigger and better than either of the current branches of fiction. I want you to write novels that are larger than anything being written today. I want you to write stories that embrace the best of both worlds. I want you to write stories that are accessible by everyone. Do you want to do something for American fiction? Then write novels that weld the broken pieces back together.

The sage advice of novelist extraordinaire and my friend Richard S. Wheeler. Let the work begin.

Left Livingston part deux

Since I've received attacks from some folks on the left and right about my recent separation from The Enterprise , allow me to clarify. First,an agent is reading my novel. Second, I have started working on a group biography of the Montana Bloomsbury group, and a full-time reporter job had become increasingly difficult to manage time-wise. I have bigger things going than worrying daily about virtually nonexistent local news in the wake of the election. And as I mentioned before, the economics and advancement opportunities just weren't there, nor would they ever be by my boss's own admission, so like the last four reporters I took it as long as I could and moved on. End of story.

Left Livingston

It's my duty to announce that I've left The Livingston Enterprise. I won't go into the details, but let's just say there was a management style issue, excessive work expectations, and no raise in salary forthcoming. I couldn't support two houses on the money they paid, so a Solomonesque decision had to be made. I'm grateful for the opportunity. I made some great friends and powerful allies, made real change in the town and county in the way of bridges and roads being repaired as a result of my stories, have great clips to my credits file now, that are linked to the right on this blog, so I'm satisfied. I'll be back summers to fish.

Losing Winter

Winter easing its grip on Northeast
Temperatures rising 0.8 degrees a decade


The comments from idiots at the end of the article resort to the same failed logic as always. It's a shame reasoned people don't comment more, but the right wing nutcases run roughshod at newspapers Web sites, which they claim to hate.

McGuane in Butte

This is a nice little clip of Tom McGuane speaking to journalists in Butte, Montana in May. This is the man I came to know this same year. Gracious, funny and as entertaining as they come. He's true Americana. I'm honored to know him.