Random Shots: The Wanderings of a Montana Writer

by John Holt

The author poses the rhetorical question: “So how did this book come to be? How did this collection of articles and stories wind up in one place in this book?” At a local bookstore in Livingston, Montana, a group of writers were talking about compilations of people’s work and do they have any merit. Yes, they do, was the conclusion – and thus John Holt has culled this marvelous collection of his articles and musings from a number of publications. It’s like a philosophical travelogue, fishing and surveying the wilderness with a man who knows a brown trout from a bull trout from a golden trout. “I broke the book up into sections called Long Running Madness, The Environment, and Big Sky Journal. Before each story I added a brief explanation of how it came to pass, public reaction, random thoughts, and/or various pratfalls that occurred along the way,” he explains. “Unlike an athlete who is usually finished by 40, writers can continue to grow and mature provided they work at it and don’t bow down and worship the twisted god alcohol as I did some years ago. I’m still alive, mad as a hatter, mad as hell about the destruction of wild country and still trying to learn how to speak my native tongue

300 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 21, 2018

About the author

Writer living in Livingston, Montana with my wife, photographer Ginny. Have 14 published books including Hunted: A Novel, Coyote Nowhere - In Search of America's Last Frontier, and Arctic Aurora - Canada's Yukon and Northwest Territories. AK Press will release my next book, Yellowstone Drift - Float the Past in Real Time in February 2009. This one is about canoeing the Yellowstone from below the northern boundary of Yellowstone Park to the river's confluence with the Missouri at Ft. Buford, North Dakota or about 525 miles. Have contributed stories to publications that include Men's Journal, Gray's Sporting Journal, Art of Angling Journal, The Denver Post, Briarpatch, E - The Environmental Magazine, California Literary Review, Outside, Counterpunch and Fly Rod & Reel. Camping, canoeing, upland bird hunting, cooking, reading, photography, fly fishing, hiking keep him occupied