There are
many factors that play into achieving any sort of success as a writer. One of
them is luck.
One of the
luckiest things that ever happened to me when it comes to writing was meeting
Dale Walker. Dale was one of those larger-than-life characters I first
encountered at a Western Writers of America convention when the author paint on
me wasn’t dry. He was a past president, past Roundup editor, past several other things in the group, and
revered, it seemed, among the entire membership. He also edited the novels of many
admirable writers and was a respected author of nonfiction himself. Being the
socially awkward type I am, I admired him from a distance.
Then, still not
long after I became a WWA member, the organization announced the creation of a
fiftieth anniversary anthology with Dale as the editor. Not knowing any better,
I submitted a story.
I saw Dale
at the next WWA convention and screwed up the courage to introduce myself. He hinted
that my story would be in the anthology. It would be, outside of some success
with poetry, my first publication of any note.
It must have
been at the next year’s convention or one soon after that I again screwed up my
courage and handed Dale a proposal for a novel. He tracked me down the next day
and said it was one of the best proposals he had ever seen—but, unfortunately,
the publisher he represented wasn’t inviting any new authors into their Western
line.
But he asked if I knew anything about a guy named John Muir.
As it happened, I knew a bit more about the man than Dale did and related one
of my favorite Muir stories about his riding out a Sierra windstorm perched in
the top of a tree just for the fun of it. Dale said he was working on a project
and may get back to me. Later that day, or perhaps the next, he took me aside
again and asked if I would like to write a book about John Muir for a new nonfiction
series—“American Heroes”—he was editing for Forge Books.
Just like
that, I became a writer of books. All because I had the good luck to meet a man
named Dale Walker.
My
admiration for Dale only grew through working with him and getting to know him better
and becoming friends over the years. I only wish I had gotten lucky earlier. Not
because it may have helped me become something of a writer sooner, but because
it would have been my good luck to know Dale longer and better, just because he
was Dale.
Dale died
December 8, 2015.
