Goodreads asked Shawn Hartje:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Shawn Hartje The most tangible inspiration for "Pipeliner" came In 2011, when I did a self-support, whitewater kayak trip down 150 miles of the Owyhee River. This trip started on the Duck Valley Reservation in Nevada, and ended near Rome, Oregon, passing mostly through the ultra-remote, desert of southwest Idaho. The first big rapid on this stretch occurs directly under a ghosty looking pipeline, which spans the river gorge, and I thought this place would make a wonderful setting for a novel. Since the Owyhee desert lacks any real population, I needed to create a town specifically for it, which ended up being Helen Springs.

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