Podcast

Transcript

John Goodwin (00:04): Hello, and welcome to the Writers and Illustrators of the Future Podcast. This is John Goodwin, your host. This contest is created by L. Ron Hubbard to provide a means for the aspiring writer and artist to have their creative efforts seen and acknowledged. If you’ve been listening to this podcast, I thank you very much. If you’re new to it, all the better. We are here today in St. Louis, Missouri at the Western Writers of America Conference. And today’s guest is Stuart Rosebruck, Senior Editor of True West Magazine.

Stuart Rosebrook (00:33): Actually my title is currently changed just recently to editor at large as I took over the Executive Director position at Charlotte Hall Museum in Prescott. I stepped back from a full editor’s position at the magazine to editor at large and the Book Review Editor.

John Goodwin (00:51): Good. And as of the last couple hours, you’re now just newly inducted as the President of Western Writers of America.

Stuart Rosebrook (00:58): That’s right. I’ve been the vice president for the past two years and so this morning I succeeded Melody Groves who served the organization actually for almost three and a half years as our President and it’s quite an honor to be President of Western Writers of America, very humbling.

John Goodwin (01:14): Yeah, and I’m looking forward to talking about that. I absolutely agree. So anyway, so welcome Stuart.

Stuart Rosebrook (01:19): Thank you very much, John. It’s great to be here.

John Goodwin (01:21): So I earlier interviewed Bob Bose Bell, who I guess he’s near on retiring now after a thousand years.

Stuart Rosebrook (01:32): Yeah, he bought the magazine in 1999 and is its executive editor and Bob’s approaching 80 and has announced that well many times on his blog about his reasons for wanting to step back from True West Magazine. But you know True West has remained a voice of the West since 1953, the same length of time period as when Western Writers of America was founded, the same year.

John Goodwin (01:59): Which is great. And what I’d definitely want to be able talk about True West because that’s been just a stalwart of American tradition. You know, you talk about the West, but it’s actually that’s Americana, you know. So as the editor and then book so I’m talking about now because this is Western this is the writers of the future, and so the whole purpose of this is to provide inspiration and tips from top professionals and for yourself.

As an editor, what have been some of your highlights, I guess, as an editor? Like I just you can’t say you discovered Louis Lemour, but anything else along that

Stuart Rosebrook (02:38): Well, I think that as the son of a writer and actually the grandson of a writer, being able to be in a position to with a senior editor and editor of True West Magazine going back to twenty thirteen and now in my new role with the magazine, the opportunity to provide writers and advocate for them, for their material, for their creativity to find a place in True West Magazine.

Whether it was through an excerpt from their newest book, whether it through was a feature or a short column or having their book reviewed, or being able to give them an assignment. And during my tenure at the True West Magazine, I oversaw all the travel, all the travel columns and…

John Goodwin (03:26): That explains when ’cause listening to you talk to you, like when I was there for eight years, I drove up there. And I was like, how does he get around all over the place. So that explains it.

Stuart Rosebrook (03:35): Yeah, and you know, I always saw the travel features in twenty-two states and you have to know what’s happening in those states travel wise to make your assignments. You work with your columnists who write travel. And I had done that in a previous career at Arizona Highways. When I was in grad school for seven years, I was the research editor for Arizona Highways magazine.

John Goodwin (03:57): I by the way I subscribed to that magazine for probably ten years. I, that’s just such beautiful artwork, let alone the history.

Stuart Rosebrook (04:04): And I think while being editor, one of the great successes I believe I had was working with writers and helping inspire them to discover how many different ways they could write the same story. What I mean by that is you look at an author like Johnny Boggs, who has a column in True West Magazine and at times also has written features and he’s written travel stories. But Johnny is a great example of an author and many authors who are pursuing a career as a professional writer.

That is what they want. To be paid and earn a living writing. And in today’s world, with digital publications, digital newspapers, blogs, influencers, writers are needing to find many different ways to make a living. And your first passion may be history writing. But as I would sit down with writers and advocate for them and try to.

I would say, you know, you need to be nimble. You need to be able to write about if you’re gonna write be a travel writer or history writer, figure out how many different ways you can sell that same story. So if you’re driving from Arizona to Utah or up through the four corner states, you know, come home with 10, 12, 16, 20 different story ideas. Story ideas for, on RV living, on seniors, on families, on children best places to take children.

Read all the other magazines that are being written out there from Sunset to New Mexico to Arizona Highways to Phoenix to your city magazines and look how they’re marketing to their different audiences. And so you have to be very nimble, and ability to tell the same story four or five different ways to find more success. And in the middle of that, if you’re able to sell what you want to be your bread and butter, maybe you have an idea if you’re wanting to write a book at some point, you’re starting with a couple of, you come across a character or a story, historical action and activity and that could lead to a book, but at the same time you’re trying to make a living, well then, you know, become more nimble as an author.

John Goodwin (06:11): Good. That’s actually very good tip on that. Now as a book review editor, you’re one of those rare treats to be able to talk to and ’cause people are like, How do I get my book reviewed and what do I do and do’s and don’ts? And so I’m gonna pick it apart here a little bit. Like so as a general thing, what are like, for you, I realize when I’m talking to you, I’m not talking about, this is not the book review editor at large.

What are turn ons and turn offs for book submissions?

Stuart Rosebrook (06:44): You know, John, that’s a great question because at the height of True West when twelve issues a year, you really had a great opportunity as the books were coming in to start organizing and saying, Okay, well, you know, and at the most each issue, the format was about five books per issue. Plus I had a column where I could, here’s ten books that came in that you should keep your eye on, or that you know, next month this book is coming out and so I would work within the column space I received.

And that’s the other interesting thing that authors, it’s so difficult. If you get 200 to, at one point, I think I was getting 600 books a year, and you realize that the math, unlike Publishers Weekly, the math of True West Magazine for book reviews, between let’s say when now there’s only six issues, you know, it, the opportunity to have your book reviewed in there, it becomes less and less and less.

So recently I’ve changed the format. So where I’m trying to review more books per issue rather than the standard five, as well as book notes. And then if I can in another column do another, you know, listing of books that’s just maybe just, you know, one sentence, you know, quick you know.

And from a thematic perspective, fiction, nonfiction, biography, there’s True West Magazine‘s mission is broadly the American West, but its core, its center is maybe 1835 to 1920. So for modern fiction to find its way, for me, you know, if I only have if I hell if I only have six issues a year to write book reviews versus twelve, then

More and more of those books that are or will be reviewed in True West Magazine are funneled within that mission center. And so we’re not a modern West magazine, we’re a Western history magazine with its emphasis on that 19th century American history. So more and more most of the books in a six-issue cycle are going to be focused on works that have some focus on the 19th or early 20th century. Obviously, we’re now 150 years since this year, since the Battle of Little Bighorn, 100 years since 1926. So you see a lot more history being published that is actually stretching the narrative well into the 20th century.

John Goodwin (09:28): Yeah, you just announced this morning at the membership meeting that the dates just got moved forward now to which I was like, my gosh, because that’s when I was in elementary school that prior to was it 1972?

Stuart Rosebrook (09:45): Yeah, 1970. We’ve moved contemporary, history and fiction. is all now 1970 to the present. Before 1970 is considered classic or you know historical. Well, you know, the interior department said states that anything fifty years or older is an antiquity. So that always triggers.

John Goodwin (10:11): Bigger discounts? <laughing>

Stuart Rosebrook (10:14): I think that authors who self-publish should always consider there’s an opportunity for them to review. There’s always a little bit of prejudice that goes into when you’re judging a publication for review if it’s published by a established publisher versus self-published. And, but that doesn’t lessen the opportunity.

As I said, I try to maximize the space I have for reviews. I would also say that anyone who is trying to solve how to get their book reviewed has to understand the current media. We’re here talking on a podcast today. And so they should market themselves to podcasters that they know that are in the business of promoting books. Their local newspapers, their local magazines, and it’s self promotions of books and local bookstores trying to get, you know, author signings and it’s, I think that that’s probably one of the biggest challenges to all writers right now in what we would call the self-service economy.

Even the major publishers are putting much more of the responsibility on the author to do their own publicity, their own marketing, and drive around with a box of books in the back of their car and set up a table somewhere and say, Here I am, here’s my book.

John Goodwin (11:41): We had an interesting thing that’s happened. We noticed this year with Barnes and Noble. We normally would send our winners for our annual Writers of the Future anthology and they go to the bookstores and then the bookstores would order in books through their distribution centers and they’d sell those books. And now they’re encouraging, okay, bring your own books to Barnes and Noble, you know, and so bring your own books and then we will we we’ll pay for whatever gets sold, but you’re bringing your own stock there. That’s it’s that’s a whole new thing now.

Stuart Rosebrook (12:11): Especially with the Barnes and Noble. That’s very interesting. And so I think that you know, the writing business has never been an easy business, but trying to keep up with how with the many affordable ways of self-promotion and becoming comfortable in your own skin to promote yourself. And that’s not easy for everybody. You know, a lot of writers, like creative people, are actually very shy and so they find their muse and their work and then to be able to say, you mean I have to go on Instagram once a week and say, Hey, you need to read my new… It’s not necessarily their first inclination.

John Goodwin (12:56): Definitely not in their wheelhouse. I’ve talked, when I did that one on one consultation stuff, you know, the editors. I’m not an editor or an agent, but I do a lot of coaching on how to promote yourself because there’s last year over five million books published. So how do you get yourself found and discoverability becomes the next major hurdle to overcome? So we discuss that a lot.

But now with True West, are there also online reviews so that you get an overflow goes into online or is it just…

Stuart Rosebrook (13:30): No, that’s the interesting thing about publishing and the same work that goes into publishing something in print in terms of design happens in terms of online. And if Bob Bell is the voice and face of the magazine, so if in his blog he mentions the book, but there isn’t there every other contributor to the magazine does not have a platform with True West to promote whether it’s travel or tourism or collecting the West or firearms. And, but all the everything that we do publish is online and every issue is online and it remains a really good resource.

John Goodwin (14:18): That’s one thing I said I’ll interject here too, ’cause I’ve known Bob for maybe not as long as you, but for many, many years. And his was the first magazine I think that really truly embraced the internet for internet for a magazine. And so its subscriber base is just amazing when I look at that compared to other magazines and the dedicated fans to True West as compared to other magazines.

Stuart Rosebrook (14:48): Yeah, I’d say that’s he’s done a great job of self-promotion. If someone’s looking to find to follow somebody who knows how to do really good self promotion, they should follow Bob Bose Bell on Facebook. And

John Goodwin (15:01): Yeah. He trained under Buffalo Bill Cody.

Stuart Rosebrook (15:05): Yeah, he’s really good. Yeah, he has the showmanship of Buffalo Bill Cody. That’s for a and that’s a rare that’s a rarity, but you’ve even you can just do a little bit like Bob. You know, you’ll you’re raising your platform in a very crowded world. I think it’s interesting what you said a few minutes ago that last year there were five million books published. Published. And that’s an area that I think most authors also need to learn how to mine with their if they’re self-published or with their publisher is on Amazon, which I don’t know what the latest number is in terms of Amazon subscribers and Amazon buyers. How many people use it worldwide? But there has been a trend in the last decade in terms of what your title of your book is and what your subhead is for your book. And then you know everyone is used to what are all the Library of Congress tag words for indexing metadata, but that metadata, those taglines and how you market your book on Amazon is really important to pay attention to. And Wolfpack Publishing out of Las Vegas, Mike Bray, is an expert at that. And he really has proven that if you really use Amazon’s system, n how they sell and how they market within their online catalog is categorizing your book correctly and two there you get a choice of like two or three, I think maybe three categories. That you know suddenly your book can be number nine in Civil War historical romance.

And so make sure you don’t just say it’s civil war. If you have a Civil War historical horror romance, make sure and get those taglines in there because someone’s gonna go online and going, you know, I wanna read another horror romance in the Civil War. And boom. And suddenly you’re you know, you there may be only out of the five million books, there may only be fifty authors who are writing Civil War horror romance, and suddenly you can find yourself as the number one writer this week. And then that’s, you know, suddenly you got, you’re a star. You know, and you got a number one next to your name. So that’s I think a whole other aspect to marketing yourself as an author today is understanding where people are buying their books.

John Goodwin (17:53): Exactly. That’s a whole other topic to get into that that’s massive on that thing. So now does True West accept galleys or ARCs or does it have to be finished books, complete books?

Stuart Rosebrook (18:05): I have, I consistently have authors who will get out in front and say, maybe it’s March or April or October, or maybe March or April or May, and say, Hey, I’ve got a book coming out in October, would you like to see my advanced readers copy? Would you like to see the book ahead of time? And that’s always helpful. In the heyday of Five Star Books, that’s no longer publishing their frontier or their fiction, their Western fiction line. But they were very aggressive on making sure the arcs were sent out well in advance and the date of publication. And when I, when, as whether it’s 10 months or 12, twelve ten issues or twelve issues or six issues, that’s very helpful to a book review editor knowing when the books are coming out.

I still review still prefer a hard copy you know in the mail and I still receive a lot of advanced readers copies printed that are come out, come to me. Nebraska, and Oklahoma regularly send me advanced readers copies of their books, you know, in printed form. And it’s still much easier for me as a book reviewer to handle the physical copy than read it as an arc. ‘Cause I’m not a I’ll admit, I’m not a Kindle reader and my wife is, but I you know, I’m on my computer so much all day, and the work I do that I really would prefer another format when I’m reading, reviewing a book.

John Goodwin (19:44): Yeah, I hear you. With my podcast, ’cause I interview so many authors and so I have to read their book before I can interview them, I like the Kindle because I can highlight, this is really interesting and I’ll tag it so I’m doing the interview, I can scroll through the book and say, Okay, now right here you said blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So where’d that come from? Or is this are you really of this or is that you know, and so it makes for an amazing conversation.

And also I like it too, ’cause I make a point if there’s a word I don’t understand, I have to look it up. I can’t try to pretend or make it fit right. So with Kindle you can highlight it and look it up right away, which I love that

Stuart Rosebrook (20:23): Well, I just learned something new right there. I’ve never done that before. I, you know, it’s a great technique.

John Goodwin (20:27): Yeah. That’s really good on, but for the podcasting interviews it’s just it’s made it go so much faster for me ’cause then I can instead of making I was I used to always handwrite everything or I’d be over handwrite it and I’d transfer it to computer so I could then have it some so I make my questions for the podcast interview. But now I just put a section saying, Okay, go through book and then I can just go through the beginning and then just I have these questions or different things on it. So it makes it for me it makes it really easy to do it and then the authors are always like, You really did read my book. You know, it’s, that so rarely happens. So now if someone sends you a Xerox, does it ever make it past the reception desk?

Stuart Rosebrook (21:13): Well, I’ve received a lot of books in manuscript form or, but no, I mean if someone just sends me, you know, copies of a chapter or a full copy of a book, I you know, it’s very difficult. You know, there are authors in the past who have sent me pre you know, well in advance copies of their books.

And, but we’re in a different era right now, especially with six issues. I can, I would say that authors working with their should work hand in hand with their pub their publishers. a lot of times you get a lot of mail emails and a publisher’s email may go into spam or it may go into a

John Goodwin (21:43): Mm-hmm.

Stuart Rosebrook (22:09): into a social, you know, in some kind of promotional, you know, Google and other a lot of times, you know, or y’all there are different categories for the email. And so they were talking at the conference today here in in St. Louis, the Western Writers Conference, about, you know, make sure that you are advocating for yourself. You’re communicating, not just your publicist, but you yourself are communicating with the with the editor about your book. And I think that a lot of authors will say I didn’t get my book reviewed. And sometimes it’s the squeaky wheel. Sometimes it’s the author who goes the extra way and puts a handwritten note in there and says, I hope you’ll review my book. Hey, I remember I met you in Tucson at the book festival. Here’s the book I told you I was working on. Now that it’s out. yeah, that’s right. We met.

John Goodwin (22:59): That’s good.

Stuart Rosebrook (23:01): Person to person relationship between the you know, the publication and the author is a big deal.

John Goodwin (23:06): Yeah. Now I like you said, you got at your height, you got six hundred books in a year and I have been to the PW book room and I’ve seen literally it’s about a thousand books a week there. It’s crazy how many books get sent to them for review and they’ve changed their editorial procedure now in the last year. But how do you decide what you’re going to review? Do you have, is it a pitch letter that gives you the, like what you’re gonna do, or you just start it, or you read the

back of the book or what makes you decide this looks interesting to check it out. And then how long do you have to get into it before you decide you’re gonna finish or you said, Okay, not, this one’s not for me.

Stuart Rosebrook (23:47): Well, that’s a very perceptive question, John. There’s a lot of layers to that. And I will say that part of my success as a book review editor, I believe, is that I’ve been doing it for so long. And that now I also have a long view of what has been published in the last few years. I’m a student of the book catalogs of the publishers and so I’m kind of always keeping up on trends.

So I’m keeping an eye out on what’s new, what’s upcoming, something that stands out differently within the genre. And so when I come down to looking at my mix that I’m gonna review, it may be that I’m like, well, this is a new topic that’s being mined, or this is fresh, or this is a classic topic, and you know, try to create a good mix of what’s just been published that’s representative.

And that’s why sometimes in my other columns I’ve got that I have in the issue, I’ll make some note of, you know, trends that are happening in Western publishing. And so a lot of it comes down to just it’s kind of a combination of what you’ve learned about what’s been, then what you’ve reviewed in the past and what’s in the present.

And then your question about what’s the final decision? I think that the topic, if you get a pretty good you know, I can read a book as a historian, and get a pretty good understanding. I’ll digest parts of a book without reading the whole book to give an understanding of you know where the author’s coming from. And so if you’re writing if you’re a history writer, you know, that preface, that introduction, your bibliography, your end notes, any kind of epilogue.

These provide real insights, even the author’s biography and reference to what the author has written before, or if it’s their first book. All of that can tip the scales towards the review. Don’t overlook the importance of what’s on that dust jacket. But placing your book within the context of what you’re writing that you haven’t just written in a vacuum that you know, I was inspired to write about this character because of A, B, and C. This book follows in the tradition and the research of in this, you know, where it sits within the historiography or what’s within the genre.

John Goodwin (26:28): That’s the pitch letter, that’s the pitch letter that comes with it.

Stuart Rosebrook (26:31): Yeah, that but also, you know, what you know, is there any, are you breaking new ground with your research? Is there something you’re revealing that hasn’t been revealed before of this historical character that you have, you’re approaching this from a new perspective or new research? And so sometimes you can find a tried and true subject. It could be the tenth book you’ve ever reviewed on Billy the Kid, but this number ten, this tenth book has a whole new perspective and a new thesis and new interpretation and new research. So that helps a lot too. So it’s not just, it’s someone who’s taken, it’s a new author or an author who you can trust their research. So that’s the other thing as a book review editor. If you begin to mistrust an author’s research, that’s going to be, you know, someone else is gonna, he’s gonna move ahead of that author.

John Goodwin (27:29): Got it. Got it. Any particular time where you’ve been reading and then all of a sudden you’re like, come on and just you try and try and you just without naming names, but it’s anything hat is just a turnoff you say, where you just stop. That’s what happened to me once after I’d gotten into a book and decided, Okay, I’m gonna talk I like the guy or whatever resulted in my taking on the book, only once have I then stopped. I try. Try it again. Try I said, I just can’t, you know.

Stuart Rosebrook (28:01): I, you know, that’s an interesting question. The way that I read today and the way I read books for review, I’ve developed my own style in terms of have I read enough? And it’s a style of sampling you learn in graduate school. There isn’t any way you can get through graduate school as a historian.

And have and read every word of every page of a book. And a good book reviewer understands how to read a book, sample a book, place it within the historiography, place the author within the genre, and come to the conclusion that this is a new important book. And there’s many times in my reviews that I will say there has not been a book on this subject written with such depth and literary style for in for two decades. And if you are a fan of this subject of Western history, this is a must-read and will become a must-read for scholars as well as aficionados of the subject who want to learn more and can use this book for further research because the end notes and the bibliography and the appendices provide such an in-depth update on the research that this will be the book on this subject for the next decade. And so I always would encourage authors, if they’re writing history biographies, to make sure they have the room to provide the footnotes or end notes and bibliography and any appendices that they can afford to put in there.

It just makes your book that much stronger and more valuable in the short and long term. And there are a lot of publishers who will push back and say, our readers don’t want that. Our readers don’t want the footnotes, or they don’t want the end notes, or they don’t want the, we just want an abridged bibliography.

But it’s, that’s the material, that’s when you’re if you’re Sherlock Holmes on and you’re the detective on this new subject or this subject that people have written dozens of books on, but you now have new research, new interpretation, then you need to fight. You need to fight for the space in your history books. Or if you’re writing fiction on a topic that’s been written before. Let’s say you’re a Jules Verne fan.

And you love 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was one of my favorite novels growing up as a kid. You know, so one Jules Verne what an amazing, like H.G. Wells and you know and Edgar Rice Burroughs and just you know visionary, creative authors of the late 19th, early 20th century. Well, there’s not, there’s nothing to lose, actually so much more to gain, or should I say no downside risk in an introduction or preface to your novel to say

I, as a child, was inspired by these authors. And I’ve gone back and done the research on them and the science of the 1890s and now today we’re so much further ahead, but at the same time, their creativity has inspired me to write my new novel series, which I hope you’ll enjoy as much as you did, you know, Jules Verne or H. G. Wells. And so you’re also placing yourself in context, you know, of classic literature.

And you’re not claiming to be that, but you also can say this was inspired by that. And I think suddenly the reader’s gonna go, well, you know, and it could be Isaac Asimov or, you know, Stephen King or, you know, whoever it is. But you’re placing yourself in context. And if it’s not in your book, at least in your promotional materials, you can say, you know, this is who I was inspired. I was inspired to be an author because I read these authors growing up and this book is a reflection of that inspiration that I’ve pursued because many great literary fiction authors are just, they’re really good historians.

And I’d say that’s the other advice I gave to, for many, many years to authors of True West. Say, Whoa, look at this wonderful historic novel that you’ve written, this literary novel that’s based on the Civil War or Jesse James or, you know, the wagon trains across the West and I said, you know, you’re looking for more publicity. You probably have some articles you could write based on your research, because to have written this wonderful novel, you’ve had to do all the primary research to make sure your facts are correct. Maybe you want to give a presentation at your local historical society.

And I guess that would lead into if you’re a writer, don’t isolate yourself. You have to isolate yourself when you’re writing, but you know, find the opportunity to join other writing organizations, both fiction and nonfiction.

To find your muse and to share your stories. And you never know the person you’re talking to will give you the tip on where you can find your research. So sure don’t be shy and try, try to overcome what I call that shared American DNA that we were all taught, which was don’t toot your own horn, put your head down, work hard. Nobody wants to hear your story, just prove to them who you are through your hard work and your, the values that you practice in your daily life. So you gotta learn how to toot your horn to be successful.

And I think that’s what you’re, the service you’re giving to everybody, John, with this podcast is inspiring people to toot their own horn. Whenever they’re comfortable doing it.

John Goodwin (33:50): Especially right now.

John Goodwin (33:58): Yeah. However you gotta do it. Discoverability is now once you got a book, that’s the next mountain to overcome. Now you’re talking about other, you know, pulp fiction or science fiction greats of the twentieth mid twentieth century. You move from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. ‘Cause I know that I’ve gotten…

Stuart Rosebrook (34:08): Almost the Tower of Babel, right?

John Goodwin (34:25): Several great reviews from True West Magazine on Hubbard’s Westerns alright. So were you responsible for any of them? ‘Cause I know that at the beginning I had I was with Megan Sarrs at the beginning. She was the first person I met with True West.

Stuart Rosebrook (34:40): I think we did review and promote some of L. Ron Hubbard’s Western new releases between 2013, 2016. I think there’s a big push to bring out a lot of his books right then. And there was, it was a little bit of a renaissance to remind people of his role in pulp western fiction and he was like people don’t know that Edgar Rice Burroughs also wrote Westerns. And…

John Goodwin (35:01): Most people didn’t know, right.

Stuart Rosebrook (35:09): …that even I would have to go back and look, but I think even Max Brand dabbled in crime. I don’t know if he did any sci-fi. Maybe he did sci-fi. But I, you know we owe such a great deal to the authors of the twenties, thirties and forties, like L Ron Hubbard and Max Brand, and authors who were just prolific and realized that as writers they were to make a living they had to be able to entertain readers in more than one genre. And what an era of authors in the 1930s. You go back and re-read the comics from that era, you know, the Superman era of comics, they were in Batman and every you know. There’s a lot of visionary sci fi authors who are predicting the future that has come true. I mean and you know, Dick Tracy, all I mean they it’s amazing how prophetic that…

John Goodwin (36:16): I’m not wearing my Dick Tracy. I’m wearing my leather watch right now because I come to the Western Writers of America conference. But yeah, I’ve got my, it syncs to my iPhone, you know, my iWatch, and it’s just amazing when it does. But it’s also interesting how we have our annual Writers of Future conference, awards event, and so often we have astronauts or the engineers that help put the rover on Mars. We had three of them, the head of special projects for SpaceX [Virgin Galactic] and various things like that. And so it’s, they’re all, they were inspired by science fiction. It was the pulp fiction. Not just the recent stuff, but the early pulp fiction is what inspired them. That cause, that’s when, and Hubbard even said in an interview, said what was it like writing in the golden age. Well, then it wasn’t the golden age. That came later. Then it was just a lot of raw creativity just exploding on the scene because it was a brand new genre.

So now how have you seen, so we’re going back to the Western here? So how have you seen the Western evolve? The Western book, novel?

Stuart Rosebrook (37:25): Western novel? I think that we have as many people today wanting to be Western writers, traditional Western writers, and I like to speak on this topic because I think that you have to, there’s this fine line between how you define yourself as a writer of a Western writer?

John Goodwin (37:45): That was gonna be my next question, so we’ll go, we’re gonna move into…

Stuart Rosebrook (37:48): Western writer and a writer of Western. You know, a Western writer and a writer of Westerns. And what does it mean to be a writer of Westerns? I would say today that you know the Tony Hillerman revolution of the regional mystery Western that dominates the bookstores today is no different than the era of Luke Short and Louis L’Amour and Max Brand and you know when and Elmore Leonard.

John Goodwin (37:52): Yeah.

Stuart Rosebrook (38:16): Loren Estleman, you when the bookstores were filled with the mass market paperback Western of the nineteenth century, you know, that you know, what we think of when we say a Western novel or a Western movie, we think of something starring John Wayne or Gunsmoke or Bonanza or you know Riflemen, etc. So I think today it’s complicated in the Western novel business.

I think more men and women are making a strong career writing Western novels of the 20th and early 21st century with the same values that were celebrated by Zane Gray and Owen Wister and Louis L’Amour and Elmer Kelton in their 19th century, you know, traditional westerns. But they’ve moved, the dial is moved forward.

You can bring those same values forward. And I, and I was thinking about this last night that, you know, if you look at the Code of the West, and then you look at the Ten Commandments or the Golden Rule, and you look at how you could promote Tom Mix or Gene Autry could promote their Code of the West. And they could do it without quoting, you know, republishing the Ten Commandments, right? They could do it in a secular way and say, you know, to be a good person.

Person to be a good citizen, here’s the Code of the Cowboy. Here’s the way you should live your life, you know, and live by this golden rule of life. And so if the consumer right now, knowing that 1976 is 50 years ago and 1926 is 100 years ago, are capable of writing westerns and their series, we love series, you know, right? And the genre is mystery, but

I know that Zane Grey had like and Max Brand had lots of characters that moved from town to town like the Lone Ranger, you know, bringing justice and you know, and protecting the women and orphans and you know, and fighting for right, what was right against evil. Then you pick up Craig Johnson and you read Longmire, there’s the Matt Dillon of modern Wyoming, right? He’s still that hero that is standing up for what’s good and fighting for what is right.

Stuart Rosebrook (40:43): And, but doing it in more modern sense, but it’s still a Western. And it’s kind of like country music and folk music and country rock. And where’s the fine line between you know really good music and good, really good writing is going to win the day? So I think there’s a lot of room for Western novelists right now. And there’s room for a Western novelist to break out writing traditional westerns, but it’s a harder market.

It’s because more Western writers are finding themselves over in the mystery section at bookstores than in the Western section. So that’s all apart. It’s like we’ve all bought music over the years when you go to a record store and you’d say, you know, why’s Jimmy Buffett in rock and not in country? Right? So it comes down to how your publisher is marketing your book.

But these are Western authors. I’d say that Amy Tan and her work on the Chinese women of San Francisco and California, she’s a Western author.

John Goodwin (41:50): But you’re not gonna find her in the Western section. Yeah.

Laura Ingalls is a Western writer, right? Her memoirs of a girl on the Western frontier. But are those Westerns? She’s a Western author who writes about the West, who writes about her family in the West.

But I used to go into bookstores and I say, you know, why is Max Evans in the Western section? You know, you don’t have William Faulkner in the Southern section or John Updike in the New England section or the Eastern section, unless you’re in New England and they have a bookshelf of New England regional authors. So as Western authors, we have to be strong advocates for ourselves as authors and proud of the fact that we are Western authors who write about the West we love.

John Goodwin (42:26): Yeah.

Stuart Rosebrook (42:39): And that we are nimble enough to write three or four different styles of westerns.

John Goodwin (42:45): I think that’s a very good point there. And in terms of bookstores and shelf placement, you know, that is a thing there. You can go to a bookstore and you’ll find half, maybe one or two shelves of westerns, you know, maybe something that’s really big on westerns you’ll get a whole, you know, five shelves, right, you know, but just one section. Whereas then you see, you know, row after row after row in science fiction and fantasy, mystery, romance, romance, and then more romance. Right

Maybe some romanticy and then more romance, which are the biggest genres.

Stuart Rosebrook (43:20): Westerns, you know, frontier westerns, trans Appalachian westerns, modern Christian Westerns, you know, cowboy, you know, there are the romance. Romance westerns are huge and they have a broad appeal, you know, from in the romance category, but they’re within romance there is four or five different types of Western romances.

John Goodwin (43:46): Really? I knew there was Western romance, but just…

Stuart Rosebrook (43:50): Yeah, because it could be that it’s the modern ranch romance, the frontier romance, you know. Bethany still is a big publisher of Western romance. And sci fi westerns, you know. I love the Mandalorian and I think it’s a Western.

John Goodwin (44:10): Absolutely. Well there’s so many well, it’s an interesting point that the Western predates science fiction ’cause science fiction is a modern day Western. If you take a look at you know, it was originally horse opera, you know, and the space opera became after that just changing same characters, different costumes. You know, instead of a horse you got a spaceship. Instead of a six shooter, you got a ray gun. You know, but it’s the same storyline in Star Trek, Star Wars.

So many movies are the modern day Western. Battlefield Earth, by Hubbard is basically a Western type of story. He even says it’s adventure, but it’s like the old Western, right? You know, what you got there fighting.

Stuart Rosebrook (44:54): Right, which I think Edgar Rice Burroughs knew exactly what he was doing. You know. So John Carter of Mars.

John Goodwin (44:58): Yeah, we have cause the Edgar Rice Burroughs Foundation is in Tarzana, which was his whole property, which was changed to a city when they sold the property. So Tarzan, the main character, became Tarzana, California. But they come to our annual Gala and then we go to their annual event and ’cause both Hubbard and ERB were major influential authors of their period with  all the different fiction they wrote and they were both incredibly prolific, amazingly prolific.

So now on, you made an interesting thing last night at the event that we attended when at the auction, I guess it was, that your dad was sent by your, his parents to Arizona because of asthma and that’s, we moved my family from Kansas moved to Arizona because of my asthma. It was just I was just constantly suffering because of all the pollen and stuff like that in Kansas and stuff. But I think that’s a lot of people end up going to Arizona. So what about your dad? ‘Cause he’s definitely got quite the, cut quite the swath as a historical figure in the Western genre.

Stuart Rosebrook (46:17): You know, his life was defined as a young man by that disease, by asthma, and his parents’ decision to stay in New York and send him to a ranch school, the Orme Ranch School or Quarter Circle V Bar Ranch School in north of Phoenix. And he went to boarding school from the fourth grade forward. And you know, we talk about what are the factors that define the West?

And Arizona, you know, with the five Cs, right? cattle, copper, cotton.

John Goodwin (46:51): And climate and citrus.

Stuart Rosebrook (46:53):

You know and climate is one that has helped define Arizona as a modern state and brought so many people west to Arizona, New Mexico, California, Nevada. It’s a dry heat. And I think that he was destined to be a storyteller.

He defined himself as a writer every day. Yeah, it was his, he woke up every day thinking about writing, what he was gonna write, what he was open to write. You know, he was a great observer of life, constant note taker. I always thought he, you know, he had a little piece of paper here or there if he heard something or heard something on the radio or heard over a conversation, he was constantly making little notes. And he was very disciplined.

I to this day have just great admiration of my father’s discipline in his craft and working his craft, honing it, he would, up to his last breath would always say writing is rewriting, and his discipline led to his success. And he wrote he typically worked five and a half days a week, and he had a methodology and a system to his writing.

And many of the writers that I’ve met, and their success, whether it’s part time, it’s a hobby, or it’s full time, they set that time aside. Whatever, it’s you know, some people write from twelve AM to two AM. I’m a morning writer. I’m really good in the morning, early morning. Not super early, but you know, but it’s that discipline that I admired in his writing that brought him success as a film and television writer, as well as fiction and theater.

John Goodwin (48:38): Great. Now I’ve not read any of your books, so what would you recommend to me as a good first read for yourself?

Stuart Rosebrook (48:46): For me. Well, you know, what’s interesting is as an author, the majority of my work has been in the medium of print media of magazine writing, Arizona Highways and True West Magazine. I did work. And you know, I published a book with my father called Junior Bonner, the making of a classic with Steve McQueen and Sam Peckinpaw in the summer of 1971.

John Goodwin (49:00): In that case I’ve read quite a bit of your work.

Stuart Rosebrook (49:15): And it’s a really strong reflection of a writer’s life. A really, my father’s autobiography of his career in writing. And, but you’ll find most of my writing and published work either in the pages of True West Magazine or Arizona Highways. I did publish and edit quite a few series of travel books in the West, both for Arizona Highways and for True West Magazine.

And so that’s probably showcases a lot of the work that I did. It was very interesting, developing a knowledge of twenty-two Western states and promoting travel and tourism and the heritage west. And that’s probably an area that I’m gonna continue to mind forward is heritage west travel and travel books. And then I’ve got a cover story coming out in True West Magazine this July August issue on two outlaws who save the West.

Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. And so I’m really starting to get into some memoir writing and looking back fifty years ago and not looking so far back, but looking a little closer to the present. But I think there’s a lot of in, there’s a lot to mine as an author right now that will involve three generations.

And I and if I could just note that my father wrote for the Waltons. He’s, one of his mentors was Earl Hamner. And one of the reasons the Waltons was so successful is that it was accessible to three living generations. Parents could sit down with their children, if their grandparents were there or not, they could reference their grandparents and say, this is how our family made it through the depression. This is how our family made it through World War II. These are the values of our family. This is, these are these are parables of living and were good lessons to share forward.

And I think a lot of writing, whether it’s for television film or novels or history, the relevancy in which you write about that can be absorbed by today’s generations, that is relevant and has value, I think is one of the hallmarks of why Westerns have been so successful in varieties of mediums. And when I talk about Willie Nelson, Will and Jennings, their music.

And then suddenly, you know, Willie Nelson was making more Westerns than Clint Eastwood. And, but their music helped keep popular Western culture alive.

John Goodwin (51:54): I went to a, last year at our writers’ conference, Willie Nelson played at the Hollywood Bowl and it was just, he did three nights and they were all sold out. It was just amazing what he still does. So we’re down to the last like six minutes or so. So a couple of things I wanted to be able to discuss is like, so your new role as executive director.

What made you decide you wanted to move in that direction? Obviously you knew it was coming because when you became vice president you knew this was gonna be the step two of this dance. So why?

Stuart Rosebrook (52:31): As executive director of Charlotte Hall Museum, that was a big professional move on my part from True West Magazine, which had gone from twelve issues to ten issues to six issues. And personally and professionally, as a creative person and as a writer, you have to continue to remain nimble and apply yourself and your professional life in its greatest way. So I had opportunity to become the executive director at Charlotte Hall Museum, which is an Arizona Living History Center in Prescott, and provide an, pursue the opportunity to tell the story and the mission successfully of the museum and help with its collections, its role in the community, its role in the state.

And becoming president of Western Writers of America complements the work I’m doing as a public historian. And it also ties into my, does not leave behind all the work that I did in Western publishing and allows me to provide service to authors and to a genre that I love, which is Western writing.

John Goodwin (53:32): I get it. Now it was just announced a new category, and this is the Writers of the Future podcast. And a lot of the listeningers are science fiction and fantasy writers, although I reach a lot of people in general. So it was a new category that was just announced, which is the alternate western which in another time may have been referred to as weird westerns.

Stuart Rosebrook (53:52): Right, alternate westerns.

Stuart Rosebrook (53:58): That’s right. Sci-fi westerns, gothic novel westerns, vampire horror westerns, fantasy westerns. Yeah. We really believe that we need to make sure we have a big enough tent for writers who are writing about the American West. It doesn’t have to be just traditional, like you’re not following the footsteps of Zane Gray. We have so many creative authors who are, you know, looking at the West from a different perspective.

And I know even from my father’s work in the eighties and nineties, he was always trying to pursue with his partner the development of a vampire western, you know, that was and you know there’s a lot of people who write vampire westerns. They like those, you know, there’s horror westerns, there’s a big group of men and women out there who write those. And so we’re excited to offer the new category of alternative westerns as well as graphic novel westerns.

John Goodwin (54:54): Yeah, you just said that there was one brand new member that wrote a western video game.

Stuart Rosebrook (55:01): Video game. Video That’s right. So and you know, we invite podcasters to join Western writers, screenwriters, of course songwriters, poets, documentary filmmakers, television and film writers, novelists, children’s authors, historians, modern, you know, and we also moved our contemporary date up to 1970. I think we spoke about…

John Goodwin (55:28): Yeah. I think it’s one thing that people need to realize. If you’re a writer, and especially like I said, with over five million books published last year, discoverability is important. And so having a team that can be with you that you can like connect up with and they can, you can help each other out, it makes a big difference. I’m in several organizations as well, writing organizations, and it’s so important to have a clan or a group or someone that’s, not just have your back, but someone that you can bounce stuff off of and give you, Hey, you do this, you should check this out over there. It’s just you can have yourself a team because, you know, like you mentioned earlier on, like a writer is a very solo introverted profession. And so connecting with other solo introverts can sometimes be very refreshing, like, there’s other people like me, but I can have more friends.

Stuart Rosebrook (56:18): Right. That’s right. Most definitely. So we really encourage people to check out Western Writers of America online and consider being a member. We would be stronger with you as a member of Western Writers of America and help advocate for your career and come to our conventions and get involved with our local writers’ groups and you know help inspire you forward.

John Goodwin (56:42): Yeah, and as a member too, ’cause I met earlier today with the webmaster on the new site he’s putting up there behind the paywall, putting like these are different editors and publishers and reputable people to work with ’cause there’s so much, there’s so much scamming going on right now. So like where do I go? Who can I trust? This is the place you can go to find people you can actually trust that can help you and not take you for a run for your money and get you nothing.

Stuart Rosebrook (57:09): Right. And you know, a really good copy editor or human copy editor versus an AI copy editor will really protect your voice. The computer, the AI is not going to protect your voice. And you and a really great copy editor is an artisan of words. And they know how to bring home your copy clean with your voice. And that is so critical.

John Goodwin (57:38): And it’s important too, there’s no such thing as like a self-published author. It’s like an author-published. You can do that because you need to have an editor. You need to have an artist. You don’t need to just plug in a cute, few cute words to come up with this. I got my great cover, do you like it? No. You need an artist to do it. And you need someone that can help design it to make it look really good. And you need an editor and you need yourself as the author.

Anyway, thank you very much, Stuart.

Stuart Rosebrook (58:04): John, thank you.

John Goodwin (58:06): And thank you for listening.

Writers of the Future and Illustrators of the Future are contests created by L. Ron Hubbard to provide that helping hand to the aspiring writer and artist. He’s been doing it for over four decades.

And we’ve been syndicated on the United Public Radio Network and can be heard now in over 150 countries. WritersTheFuture.com to listen to past episodes of this podcast or to sign up for the free online writing workshop, either contest, either writer contests or the illustrator contests, and to see the past volumes and winners.

And again, thank you very much, Stuart.

Stuart Rosebrook (58:36): Thank you, John.