On the Outlaw Trail.

You could stick a pin just about anywhere in a map of Utah and there would be some interesting aspect of Old West history that happened there. The northeastern part of Utah below Wyoming and next to Colorado is no exception. Brown’s Hole (Brown’s Park, if you prefer) and Diamond Mountain are there. And the Outlaw Trail, leading from Hole in the Wall in Wyoming to Robbers Roost in Utah, runs through the Uinta Basin and most every outlaw in the history of the Intermountain West frequented the area.

 Among them was Matt Warner, the bandit who introduced Butch Cassidy to the outlaw life, and subject of my historical novel, OUTLAWMAN: The Life and Times of Matt Warner.

On July 22, I will be in Vernal, the heart of the Uinta Basin, where Matt Warner was arrested for murder following a gunfight where he killed two men and wounded another, speaking at the Uintah County Library. (Uintah and Uinta are both correct spellings, depending on circumstances, but that’s a story for another day.) I’ll be speaking about Warner’s life and times, reading a few selections from the book, and visiting with people about one of the Old West’s most notorious outlaws, who later became a respected lawman.

If you’re anywhere near the area we’d love to see you there. There’s a lot to do and see in the Uinta Basin, including a bank on Vernal’s main street built back around 1916 from 37 tons of bricks—every one of which arrived in town with a postage stamp, via parcel post. That, too, is a story for another day.

It’s a Kick (starter).

A while back, publisher Silverado Press invited me to be part of an anthology of Western stories by some of today’s top authors (and me). It sounded like an interesting project, so I signed on. That’s the cover of the book above.

But there’s something unusual about this book—not so unusual these days, I suppose, but certainly new to me. Readers—potential readers—will fund the publication through something called Kickstarter. I guess how it works is that interested readers buy the book in advance, contributing at various levels of support for added perks and benefits.

As I said, I don’t know the ins-and-outs of how it all works, but here’s a link that should answer all your questions and tell you how to get involved.

Silverado Press Presents Western Stories by Today’s Top Writers.

You’ll see that the editor, Jeff Mariotte, has assembled a stellar cast of Western Writers. And me. Take a look. You might like the idea of helping publish a book.

Reruns.

Not long ago, yours truly appeared on LA Talk Radio in a wide-ranging, penetrating, perceptive, enlightened, astute, scintillating, incisive, informative, in-depth (or so I’m told) interview with Tom Swearingen, guest host for the “Rendezvous with a Writer” program.

Life being what it is, it’s altogether likely that not all of you were able to tune in to the live broadcast.

Not to worry. LA Talk Radio has made the program available all over the place so you can tune in. Being something of a Luddite, I don’t pretend to know what all this stuff is or how it all works, but you (or your grandkids) probably do.

Here are several links you can click on to take you to either an audio only or a video and audio recording of the interview. Thanks for listening. Or watching.

Video:
LA Talk Radio Facebook Page
YouTube

Audio:
LA Talk Radio Audio
Podbean
Spotify
Amazon Music