Clark Hays's Blog - Posts Tagged "montana"
Smackdown: Big cities vs. small towns
Kathleen and I wrote this for the For The Love of Reading Blog run by Niina, a fantastic book blogger in Finland and a Goodreadsian.
Blood and Whiskey, the second book in The Cowboy and Vampire Thriller Series, captures the best and worst of rural and urban living.
In Blood and Whiskey, (Pumpjack Press, May 1, 2012 ), Tucker and Lizzie once again find themselves marooned in tiny LonePine, Wyoming, battling the maddening aspects of small town life (at least for Lizzie) and the murderous international intrigues of sophisticated, highly urban vampires (according to Tucker, the worst kind of city slickers).
One of our favorite things about writing for these characters, and the tensions between cowboys and vampires, is the “opposites attract” relationship of Tucker and Lizzie. Tucker has spent his entire life in LonePine (population 438, with one on the way), with the notable exception of a fevered trip to New York when Lizzie was kidnapped (you’ll have to read The Cowboy and the Vampire: A Darkly Romantic Thriller for more). The evil vampires anxious to kill her and drain his blood were almost as bad as the crowds of people, bumper to bumper traffic on endless paved streets and rows of skyscrapers blocking the view.
Lizzie, on the other hand, grew up in New York and loves the hustle and bustle, the art and culture, the pace and energy and the international melting pot of people. She traveled to LonePine, a wasteland by her cultural standards, to research an article about the dying west. After falling for Tucker, she stays. And while she loves the clean air and wide-open spaces, she hasn’t quite adjusted to small — really small — town life. The highway truck stop is the only place to eat in town, the only play they have is put on by the fourth grade class during the holidays and the library is the same size as the drive-thru espresso shack.
Despite that, Tucker and Lizzie appreciate what’s special and different about the other and that’s what helps keep them together and keeps their relationship strong despite some serious obstacles including, at least in Blood and Whiskey, a price on Lizzie head and a scheming vampire world pushed to the edge of extinction.
That part of their relationship, east meets west, is drawn directly from our own lives.
Whitehall, Montana, meet Washington, DC
Our early years could not have been more different. Kathleen grew up in the very heart of Washington, DC, which has a population of more than 600,000 people and is located in a dense urban area of millions. Her childhood home was not far from the Washington Cathedral and just a stone’s throw from Embassy Row. For her, hopping on the metro and wandering through the Smithsonian, reading at the Library of Congress or taking in an exhibit at the Hirshhorn were all in a regular day. She learned to be confident around people and grounded in the history, creativity and learning unique to America’s capital.
Clark grew up on a ranch in Montana, 15 miles from the nearest town, Whitehall, which had about 2,000 people. His childhood home was a stone’s throw from Fish Creek, near a number of historic stage stops and homesteader cabins and was surrounded by a lot of sagebrush. For him, hopping on a horse and riding up into the mountains, reading a good book under apple trees planted by settlers or building fence torn down by elk was all part of a regular day. He learned to be confident in the wilderness and grounded in the history, beauty and tenacity of western living.
We met and fell in love in Portland, Oregon, a small town by Kathleen’s standards and a big city by Clark’s. We’ve lived here for years now and enjoy the best of both worlds. We visit the east coast often to visit Kathleen’s family and load up on art and cultural events, and we visit the remote areas of Oregon — Plush and Steens Mountain — to load up on the stillness and beauty of the wilderness. Plus, we are able to head over to the lovely Oregon coast frequently.
For us, like our characters, opposites really do attract and start to change each other. Kathleen has learned to love the empty spaces and Clark has become a fan of galleries and museums. With that in mind, here are two “top five” lists based on our experiences.
A city girl’s top five reasons to love small towns:
1) The views are spectacular, especially when there are mountains involved.
2) Clean air and no traffic.
3) Fewer lights make for beautiful starry skies at night.
4) Friendly people — everybody waves at everybody in western towns and really care about how your day is going.
5) There are no distractions for reading and writing.
A country boy’s top five reasons to love big cities:
1) History — especially on the east coast, you can visit buildings that have been standing for two or three hundred years. I know that has nothing on the historical cities of Europe, but for me, it’s old.
2) Art — I love all the shows and museums and galleries, even the ones I don’t really get (which is most of them).
3) Great food — there’s nothing wrong with small town restaurants, but eating at the drive-in every week gets a little old compared to Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, Greek, etc.
4) Interesting people — sometimes really interesting, like you cannot look away they are so interesting.
5) Bookstores. And good coffee.
Read Blood and Whiskey to find out even more about the difference between small towns and big cities, opposites attract romantic tension — it doesn’t get much more opposite than a human and a vampire falling in love — and thrill-a-minute action. As Lizzie comes to terms with being undead, she has difficult choices ahead that will make Tucker far more uncomfortable than learning how to hail a taxi. And of course, their enemies are going to make it difficult for true love to last beyond the next sunset.
Blood and Whiskey, the second book in The Cowboy and Vampire Thriller Series, captures the best and worst of rural and urban living.
In Blood and Whiskey, (Pumpjack Press, May 1, 2012 ), Tucker and Lizzie once again find themselves marooned in tiny LonePine, Wyoming, battling the maddening aspects of small town life (at least for Lizzie) and the murderous international intrigues of sophisticated, highly urban vampires (according to Tucker, the worst kind of city slickers).
One of our favorite things about writing for these characters, and the tensions between cowboys and vampires, is the “opposites attract” relationship of Tucker and Lizzie. Tucker has spent his entire life in LonePine (population 438, with one on the way), with the notable exception of a fevered trip to New York when Lizzie was kidnapped (you’ll have to read The Cowboy and the Vampire: A Darkly Romantic Thriller for more). The evil vampires anxious to kill her and drain his blood were almost as bad as the crowds of people, bumper to bumper traffic on endless paved streets and rows of skyscrapers blocking the view.
Lizzie, on the other hand, grew up in New York and loves the hustle and bustle, the art and culture, the pace and energy and the international melting pot of people. She traveled to LonePine, a wasteland by her cultural standards, to research an article about the dying west. After falling for Tucker, she stays. And while she loves the clean air and wide-open spaces, she hasn’t quite adjusted to small — really small — town life. The highway truck stop is the only place to eat in town, the only play they have is put on by the fourth grade class during the holidays and the library is the same size as the drive-thru espresso shack.
Despite that, Tucker and Lizzie appreciate what’s special and different about the other and that’s what helps keep them together and keeps their relationship strong despite some serious obstacles including, at least in Blood and Whiskey, a price on Lizzie head and a scheming vampire world pushed to the edge of extinction.
That part of their relationship, east meets west, is drawn directly from our own lives.
Whitehall, Montana, meet Washington, DC
Our early years could not have been more different. Kathleen grew up in the very heart of Washington, DC, which has a population of more than 600,000 people and is located in a dense urban area of millions. Her childhood home was not far from the Washington Cathedral and just a stone’s throw from Embassy Row. For her, hopping on the metro and wandering through the Smithsonian, reading at the Library of Congress or taking in an exhibit at the Hirshhorn were all in a regular day. She learned to be confident around people and grounded in the history, creativity and learning unique to America’s capital.
Clark grew up on a ranch in Montana, 15 miles from the nearest town, Whitehall, which had about 2,000 people. His childhood home was a stone’s throw from Fish Creek, near a number of historic stage stops and homesteader cabins and was surrounded by a lot of sagebrush. For him, hopping on a horse and riding up into the mountains, reading a good book under apple trees planted by settlers or building fence torn down by elk was all part of a regular day. He learned to be confident in the wilderness and grounded in the history, beauty and tenacity of western living.
We met and fell in love in Portland, Oregon, a small town by Kathleen’s standards and a big city by Clark’s. We’ve lived here for years now and enjoy the best of both worlds. We visit the east coast often to visit Kathleen’s family and load up on art and cultural events, and we visit the remote areas of Oregon — Plush and Steens Mountain — to load up on the stillness and beauty of the wilderness. Plus, we are able to head over to the lovely Oregon coast frequently.
For us, like our characters, opposites really do attract and start to change each other. Kathleen has learned to love the empty spaces and Clark has become a fan of galleries and museums. With that in mind, here are two “top five” lists based on our experiences.
A city girl’s top five reasons to love small towns:
1) The views are spectacular, especially when there are mountains involved.
2) Clean air and no traffic.
3) Fewer lights make for beautiful starry skies at night.
4) Friendly people — everybody waves at everybody in western towns and really care about how your day is going.
5) There are no distractions for reading and writing.
A country boy’s top five reasons to love big cities:
1) History — especially on the east coast, you can visit buildings that have been standing for two or three hundred years. I know that has nothing on the historical cities of Europe, but for me, it’s old.
2) Art — I love all the shows and museums and galleries, even the ones I don’t really get (which is most of them).
3) Great food — there’s nothing wrong with small town restaurants, but eating at the drive-in every week gets a little old compared to Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, Greek, etc.
4) Interesting people — sometimes really interesting, like you cannot look away they are so interesting.
5) Bookstores. And good coffee.
Read Blood and Whiskey to find out even more about the difference between small towns and big cities, opposites attract romantic tension — it doesn’t get much more opposite than a human and a vampire falling in love — and thrill-a-minute action. As Lizzie comes to terms with being undead, she has difficult choices ahead that will make Tucker far more uncomfortable than learning how to hail a taxi. And of course, their enemies are going to make it difficult for true love to last beyond the next sunset.
Research by proxy
When you write about ostensibly mythic creatures, actual research is next to impossible. That’s one of the challenges of The Cowboy and the Vampire series.
Cowboys are easy. I grew up on a ranch in Montana and still remember what it’s like to ride and rope and brand. Plus, Kathleen and I live in the Pacific Northwest which means we are never more than a half day’s drive from cowboy country (central and south-eastern Oregon) where actual cowboys and cowgirls can be found in run-down bars listening to honky-tonk music and drinking beer and after an actual long day of working on a ranch.
Vampires, however, are a bit tougher to profile. I can’t just hop on the bus and get off at Dracula’s castle. That’s why I do research by proxy. The vampires in our books are evolutionarily superior beings, stronger than humans and practically immortal, who just happen to need human blood to survive. That makes them a super predator. To introduce an element of reality, we read all the stories and legends we could get our hands on, and I read a lot of nonfiction books about species that hunt — wolves and grizzlies and, one of my favorites, Siberian tigers (The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival).
But to really pull my share and write convincingly about vampires, I wanted to get inside the heads of beings that completely lack empathy and operate without the “normal” kinds of moral calculations that hold humans back, erhmm, keep society functioning. That brought me to books about sociopathy and psychopathy and, ultimately, to Cruelty: Human Evil and the Human Brain by Kathleen Taylor.
Despite the dark topic, this is now one of my favorite books of all time. I learned much more than just what might motivate a vampire, I learned what it is that makes us human, and how it works in our brains and in society. Here’s an excerpt of my review:
A margin-wrecker: the best kind of book is one that begs to be marked up
It’s odd — maybe not that odd — that a book about cruel, base and disgusting acts would emerge as one of my favorites of all time.
The author, Kathleen Taylor (funny that two of my favorite authors are named Kathleen) is a neuroscientist at Oxford. She brings together the latest in the fledgling field of neuroscience with evolutionary theory, social and cultural anthropology and biologic processes to bring cruelty to life — what it is and why we have it — and helps readers arrive at a better understanding of what it means to be human. She has a vivid, technically precise and funny writing style that kept me hooked and kept me scribbling frantically in the margins as new ideas skittered away.
Cruelty, she argues, is linked to the uniquely human desire to predict and control the natural world. That can be as basic as avoiding dangerous predators or as refined as protecting belief systems important to our culture. And, she says, “…our hunger for control does not demand that our predictions are actively confirmed, just that they remain unchallenged.”
Challenged, we are “…vulnerable to symbolic threats which cause us no physical harm.” But because of the way our brains are wired, “…conflict feels stressful, like pain, and most people prefer to avoid it.”
According to Taylor, we act against symbolic threats the same way our bodies act against dangerous diseases – “learn the warning signs, avoid the source, quarantine the infected and expel the contaminant.” It’s the same approach, and the same language (a blight upon our culture, threats to our way of living), that have been used to tragic result for those considered dangerous for centuries.
It’s all tied to our biologic responses because, she argues, the symbolic brain is an extension of the physical brain. The same systems we use to deal with ingesting putrid food are high jacked by the brain when we encounter a putrid belief system that is, challenging to our symbolic health. It’s the only system we have in place to deal with a threat that makes us feel sick.
Check out the full review here on Goodreads and if you are in the market for a nonfiction tour through the seediest parts of the human brain, check out her book.
Note: this first appeared on our webpage http://www.cowboyandvampire.com
Cowboys are easy. I grew up on a ranch in Montana and still remember what it’s like to ride and rope and brand. Plus, Kathleen and I live in the Pacific Northwest which means we are never more than a half day’s drive from cowboy country (central and south-eastern Oregon) where actual cowboys and cowgirls can be found in run-down bars listening to honky-tonk music and drinking beer and after an actual long day of working on a ranch.
Vampires, however, are a bit tougher to profile. I can’t just hop on the bus and get off at Dracula’s castle. That’s why I do research by proxy. The vampires in our books are evolutionarily superior beings, stronger than humans and practically immortal, who just happen to need human blood to survive. That makes them a super predator. To introduce an element of reality, we read all the stories and legends we could get our hands on, and I read a lot of nonfiction books about species that hunt — wolves and grizzlies and, one of my favorites, Siberian tigers (The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival).
But to really pull my share and write convincingly about vampires, I wanted to get inside the heads of beings that completely lack empathy and operate without the “normal” kinds of moral calculations that hold humans back, erhmm, keep society functioning. That brought me to books about sociopathy and psychopathy and, ultimately, to Cruelty: Human Evil and the Human Brain by Kathleen Taylor.
Despite the dark topic, this is now one of my favorite books of all time. I learned much more than just what might motivate a vampire, I learned what it is that makes us human, and how it works in our brains and in society. Here’s an excerpt of my review:
A margin-wrecker: the best kind of book is one that begs to be marked up
It’s odd — maybe not that odd — that a book about cruel, base and disgusting acts would emerge as one of my favorites of all time.
The author, Kathleen Taylor (funny that two of my favorite authors are named Kathleen) is a neuroscientist at Oxford. She brings together the latest in the fledgling field of neuroscience with evolutionary theory, social and cultural anthropology and biologic processes to bring cruelty to life — what it is and why we have it — and helps readers arrive at a better understanding of what it means to be human. She has a vivid, technically precise and funny writing style that kept me hooked and kept me scribbling frantically in the margins as new ideas skittered away.
Cruelty, she argues, is linked to the uniquely human desire to predict and control the natural world. That can be as basic as avoiding dangerous predators or as refined as protecting belief systems important to our culture. And, she says, “…our hunger for control does not demand that our predictions are actively confirmed, just that they remain unchallenged.”
Challenged, we are “…vulnerable to symbolic threats which cause us no physical harm.” But because of the way our brains are wired, “…conflict feels stressful, like pain, and most people prefer to avoid it.”
According to Taylor, we act against symbolic threats the same way our bodies act against dangerous diseases – “learn the warning signs, avoid the source, quarantine the infected and expel the contaminant.” It’s the same approach, and the same language (a blight upon our culture, threats to our way of living), that have been used to tragic result for those considered dangerous for centuries.
It’s all tied to our biologic responses because, she argues, the symbolic brain is an extension of the physical brain. The same systems we use to deal with ingesting putrid food are high jacked by the brain when we encounter a putrid belief system that is, challenging to our symbolic health. It’s the only system we have in place to deal with a threat that makes us feel sick.
Check out the full review here on Goodreads and if you are in the market for a nonfiction tour through the seediest parts of the human brain, check out her book.
Note: this first appeared on our webpage http://www.cowboyandvampire.com
Article about our new book in my hometown paper
As we make ready to release book two in our new series, we were stoked to get front page coverage in The Whitehall Ledger, my hometown paper.
Shout out to Jack Smith for penning a terrific article.
Release of second "Bonnie & Clyde" book set for March 24
During his childhood in Whitehall, Clark Hays would often hear quite the tales from his father who once convinced him that a car on their ranch had belonged to Bonnie and Clyde.
Years later, the 1984 graduate of Whitehall High School is publishing his second in a series of books about the popular criminal duo. Hays said, "Bonnie and Clyde: Dam Nation", a book co-written with Kathleen McFall, follows the first book in the series, "Resurrection Road", imagining an alternate history in which the two outlaw lovers are spared from their gruesome fates and forced to work for the government defending democracy and the working class.
Hays said in the new book scheduled to be released March 24, Bonnie and Clyde are trying to stop saboteurs from blowing up Hoover Dam (then called Boulder Dam) before it's completed.
After Hays and McFall wrote four books in a Cowboy and Vampire series, he said they wanted to come up with a fun, thrilling and entertaining series that allowed them to explore some of current economic issues facing our country.
"We picked Bonnie and Clyde because they occupy such an interesting place in American history, criminals who became almost folk heroes because of their origin story and the fact that they never had the chance to atone for their crimes," he said.
After publishing the first book about Bonnie and Clyde, Hays noted one of the coolest connections they have made is with the National Grange.
"The Grange, the noted fraternal order and advocacy group for rural Americans, plays a huge role in the books and the ACTUAL Grange noticed. We've been featured in their national publication, "Good DAY", twice now. And we're getting lots of great feedback and stories from fans on our Facebook page, including some ancestors of Clyde who seem genuinely pleased that we're resurrecting the legacy and giving their kin a (fictional) chance to atone for their crimes," he said.
Looking back to his early memories on the ranch 15 miles outside of Whitehall, Hays said he would pretend he was Frank Hamer and added to the constellation of bullet holes in the doors on the car on his property with his trusty .22 rilfle.
He credits the Whitehall Library for setting him straight that his father was pulling his leg about Bonnie and Clyde meeting their maker in Montana. Hays said he went through a phase at the library where we would read everything he could about American criminals, from Bonnie and Clyde to mobsters like Lucky Luciano.
"To the relief (I hope) of my parents, and probably the librarian, I didn't become a criminal, but chose to be a writer instead," he said.
For more information and reviews about the book, visit https://www.pumpjackpress.com/damnati....
Here's a link to the original article: http://www.whitehallledger.com/story/...
Shout out to Jack Smith for penning a terrific article.
Release of second "Bonnie & Clyde" book set for March 24
During his childhood in Whitehall, Clark Hays would often hear quite the tales from his father who once convinced him that a car on their ranch had belonged to Bonnie and Clyde.
Years later, the 1984 graduate of Whitehall High School is publishing his second in a series of books about the popular criminal duo. Hays said, "Bonnie and Clyde: Dam Nation", a book co-written with Kathleen McFall, follows the first book in the series, "Resurrection Road", imagining an alternate history in which the two outlaw lovers are spared from their gruesome fates and forced to work for the government defending democracy and the working class.
Hays said in the new book scheduled to be released March 24, Bonnie and Clyde are trying to stop saboteurs from blowing up Hoover Dam (then called Boulder Dam) before it's completed.
After Hays and McFall wrote four books in a Cowboy and Vampire series, he said they wanted to come up with a fun, thrilling and entertaining series that allowed them to explore some of current economic issues facing our country.
"We picked Bonnie and Clyde because they occupy such an interesting place in American history, criminals who became almost folk heroes because of their origin story and the fact that they never had the chance to atone for their crimes," he said.
After publishing the first book about Bonnie and Clyde, Hays noted one of the coolest connections they have made is with the National Grange.
"The Grange, the noted fraternal order and advocacy group for rural Americans, plays a huge role in the books and the ACTUAL Grange noticed. We've been featured in their national publication, "Good DAY", twice now. And we're getting lots of great feedback and stories from fans on our Facebook page, including some ancestors of Clyde who seem genuinely pleased that we're resurrecting the legacy and giving their kin a (fictional) chance to atone for their crimes," he said.
Looking back to his early memories on the ranch 15 miles outside of Whitehall, Hays said he would pretend he was Frank Hamer and added to the constellation of bullet holes in the doors on the car on his property with his trusty .22 rilfle.
He credits the Whitehall Library for setting him straight that his father was pulling his leg about Bonnie and Clyde meeting their maker in Montana. Hays said he went through a phase at the library where we would read everything he could about American criminals, from Bonnie and Clyde to mobsters like Lucky Luciano.
"To the relief (I hope) of my parents, and probably the librarian, I didn't become a criminal, but chose to be a writer instead," he said.
For more information and reviews about the book, visit https://www.pumpjackpress.com/damnati....
Here's a link to the original article: http://www.whitehallledger.com/story/...
