'evening all,
I have news.
First, my book about the actress Edna Loftus will be published in June of this year. It is available for preorder through Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Walmart (of all places). Or you can wait and buy one directly from me and get it signed. I am proud of this book as it is something of a departure from what I am good at, i.e. Arizona histories.
Second, I am now writing articles for the local newspaper, The Payson Roundup. This was going to be a series of article about the interees (I invented a word) in the Payson Pioneer Cemetery, but Editor Alexis Bechman liked my writing so much she offered me a column (either that or she needed filler on slow news days). It will be published under "Gila Histories."
Third. I will be doing a podcast with the Bisbee library in March, talking about the Bisbee Massacre of 1883. I will let you know the details when I have them. It will be recorded, so you do not actually have to listen to it, but there will be a question and answer portion at the end of the program, so....
Lastly, I am about 83.6% finished with my manuscript about the Arizona Rangers. This has been a bit of a slog (to employ an English idiom). I started this manuscript a couple of years ago . but I had to set it aside, as I did not like the men I was writing about. Usually, I write about people I empathize with, like Augustine Chacón, John Heath, and Edna Loftus, or people I respect like Commodore Perry Owens and Frank Wattron. As I was reading and writing about the rangers, I found I really did not like any of the officers or the men who served under them.
While authors like Joseph Miller, Bill O'Neal, and Marshall Trimble have glorified and lauded the Rangers, I just think they were thugs with badges. I neither empathize or respect these men. They were basically a taxpayer-funded police force which protected the property rights of the mining and cattle corporations. Once again, I find myself excoriating and eviscerating a cherished mythology, but that is what I do.
As Billy Breakenridge says to Sheriff Johnny Behan in the film Tombstone, I'm sorry, sir, but we got to have some law," I say to these spinners of yarns and fabulists, "We must have some fucking truth!"
