Writing a book is like anything: One goes to work in the morning, every morning, and writes. I can respond to questions about craft just like a carpenter can talk about specific tools and tricks of the trade. I’ve always thought that the components of writing a novel are ninety-five percent craft and five percent creativity. It’s as if when one revealed the true (but obviously withheld) answer, the curtain would be pulled back and the secret would be out.
There’s a question that always comes up at talks and book signings, which is: “Where do you get your ideas?” It’s the most confounding question for a writer to answer, I think, and leads to an answer that is unsatisfactory for the person who queried. Also included are pieces set in Yellowstone (“Pirates of Yellowstone”), the North Platte River in Wyoming (“Every Day Is a Good Day on the River”-one of my firmest beliefs, by the way), and during a ferocious Wyoming blizzard (“Pronghorns of the Third Reich”). Four feature Joe Pickett and/or Nate Romanowski (“One-Car Bridge,” “The Master Falconer,” “Dull Knife,” “Shots Fired”) and the rest are wide-ranging, from the Wind River Mountains, Wyoming Territory, 1835 (“The End of Jim and Ezra”) to a dark little number in modern-day Paris via South Dakota (“Le Sauvage Noble”). I’ve received many inquiries over the years from readers asking where they could find the stories, and thanks to the good folks at Penguin/Putnam (especially my legendary editor, Neil Nyren), here they are. Three of them (“One-Car Bridge,” “Blood Knot,” “Shots Fired”) are new and original to this anthology.
The short stories in this collection were written over the last decade and appeared here and there - as limited editions, in obscure anthologies, or not at all. Shots Fired: Stories From Joe Pickett Country
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