Craig Johnson - 2009 National Book Festival

from the Library of Congress in Washington DC our next speaker Craig Johnson is a native of Wyoming who lives in Wyoming and has published five prize-winning novels about Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire his recent novel another man's moccasins one the Western writers of America's spur Award for now novel of the year last year and was named the mountains and plains book of the year his most recent book in the in the sheriff Longmire series the Dark Horse was published earlier this year he's a he's a true son of the West and it's a it's a pleasure to introduce Craig Johnson hello hi my name is Craig Johnson I'm from you cross Wyoming population 25 so there are more people in this tent than there are in my County yeah and it's nice to be here we call it the crown jewel of the UCLA area you cross the it's a UCLA for you cross Claremont lighter and our Veda those are their little towns a string out across the Powder River country like that and so I wanted to say thanks I get to everybody I want to say thanks to the of course the Library of Congress like everybody that took place like putting together the National Book Festival is quite an honor for a guy from a town of 25 it's 23 this weekend because my wife and I are here and we're just excited to be anywhere where you know we know don't know somebody like that and and I have to be honest like that when I was being courted you know by the National Book Festival they the woman that was talking to me on the phone she said well mr. Johnson we have over a hundred thousand people to come you know to the National Book Festival and I paused for a second and I think she thought that that was a moment of reticence on my part or something and and she said that's a lot of people mr. Johnson I said yes man that's a fifth of my state actually so I I'd like to start you off with a quick story like that just because I like to hear you laugh like that I have to admit like that I I was when my first book the cold dish came out it it was a Viking penguin came out with it like that and it was a book about a sheriff you know in Wyoming like that and I had a lot to do with it with the Northern Cheyenne tribes like it and it's a white County on it on the border there like that and what happened was is um my first book came out and I started getting emails from different groups and different people like that and I got this one email from a library over in Meeteetse which is a town of 351 which is a pretty good-sized town in Wyoming and it was from a woman by the name of Diana Chapman and she was the librarian for the library there and she said you know we really we read your first book the cold dish we really loved it and we would love to have you come over and do an event at a tower at our library like I wrote her back and I said well I'd be delighted to do an event at your library like that and she wrote me back once again really quick and said I just want you to know that we're just a little branch library out of Cody and we don't have a whole lot of money for you know honorariums or anything like that like that and so I wrote her back like it and I said you know once you reach a certain level of literary notoriety you know you really can't negotiate your honorary I'm like I said mine's the same as it's always been a six-pack of Rainier beer cans preferred it was the fastest response from a library I've ever received consequently I had an unwritten rule basically with all of the libraries in Wyoming so that whenever I would do a library event my honorarium was a six-pack of Rainier beer cans preferred and consequently also I have not bought beer in five years I was over there for an event here just last year like that doing the event and I was getting ready to come back across a small section of Route 30 like that which cuts across the Red Desert which is relatively famous because it has the Wyoming mummy which was where a shut down motel like that they actually found the proprietor of the motel in there and he'd been dead for two years on that note like that I was driving my wife's car like that and the rancher that I was staying with he said well be careful because he says those detachment three HP's they're really bad the Highway Patrol are and they love to write tickets like hotcakes so be careful on your way back across there don't break the speed limit by too much look at and so I took off out of there and I'm driving my wife's car and my truck won't go the speed limit so I don't have to worry about that like that but I'm driving her car like that you know what's like for those of you who've driven in the West you know I mean your foot just you don't see another car for about you know 30 40 minutes your foot just automatically starts going down a little faster and a little faster so I'm whistling along there on route 30 like that and I pop over it hill I haven't seen another car in 40 minutes I finally I see another car going in the other direction and I'm like look a car and then the light bar came on on that car and I pulled over to the side of the road because I'd you know had experiences in law enforcement I pulled over the side of the road there you know and I'm I pull out my license and registration I've got them hanging out the window you know for him like that by the time he gets there and this black Archer you know comes around circles around behind me and pulls up behind and he's all bristling you know with antenna and laser and radar and everything like this and so he gets out of the car he comes walking up I'll cut he's a young guy about 30 and I didn't used to call guys who were 30 young but now I do and he gets up to the car like that and you know he's got got the license registration stand there waiting for him like he takes the license in the registration like that and he looks at it looking and he looks at me and he says do you know how fast you were going and I'm always amused by that question because I always think if you guess right do you still get the ticket didn't you know I haven't tested it yet like that but I think the answer is probably no so anyway like it he looks at my license registration I said well I you know I thought about hedging my bets like it and I said I think I think I was I was about seven or eight miles over the speed limit and he looks down at me like it he goes no mr. Johnson you were about 17 miles over the speed limit with it yeah I'm not gonna talk my way out of this one like that and about the time I thought that he looked down at my driver's license and he looked at me he looked at my driver's license again he looked at me and he said I read your books mr. Johnson and I look over at my wife and I go this could go either way and he said no I was a patrolman in Indianapolis like and I moved out here about three years ago look at me says now you have some experiences too don't you yeah we didn't we had this nice wonderful conversation for about three or four minutes and throughout this entire three to four minute conversation I am fully aware he is still holding my license in my registration we get to a small lull in the conversation like that he looks at me and he says I'll be back in just a minute and he turns and he walks away known my wife my lovely redheaded wife from New England what that is sitting there in the seat by meet the window is down he gets two steps away from the door and she says well that was a nice conversation you have to be a real dick to give you a ticket now I'm like honey could you have waited until they got four steps from the door before you called him that so you know I'm sitting there waiting I've got to take it in like 12 years I figure if I get a ticket big deal you know I'll take it so what what then so I'm sitting there waiting like that and so I've won a couple of different awards this year it's been really nice and also kind of gives you an indication as to how far literature is sunk this year but he comes back up after about three or four minutes again like that he comes back up to the car door there like that he looks at me like that any he I'll never forget the words because they were better than any award ceremony I'll ever have in my entire life he hands me the blue warning ticket and he says we wish you'd slow down mr. Johnson we'd like to get some more books out of you and I was like you bet no problem there officer so I drove the rest of the way home and I get home to you cross like that and so I have this little thing that I send out these post-its that I send out and the reason I call them post-its is because my sheriff Walt Longmire he he has a dispatcher named Ruby like that who puts post-its on his door frame every morning so that he knows what he has to do you know every morning all the women are nodding their heads going yeah and and so I send this newsletter out that's called to post it and I thought well this will be a funny story I can send it out like that and everybody will get a laugh out of it with it and so so I'll write the thing all up and my wife reads it you know and she's always my first editor like that she reads it and she says are you sure you want to send this out and I said well why like then she says well you're gonna get this guy in trouble he's only been in you know patrolman for like about you know three years like a highway patrolman you know what if when you know what if they see it as nepotism you're gonna get him into trouble like that and I said well okay well I'll just I'll write something else and she goes no just change it and have him give you the ticket in the end and so I thought okay well I'll give an anti Hollywood ending it has a bad ending it gives me the ticket in the end look it and so I fired this thing out like that and doesn't every law enforcement official in the United States write me back and go what a dick I can't believe if that young pup I mean I mean the Attorney General for the state of Wyoming is writing me and go if that young pup knew how good you were for law enforcement he wouldn't be writing you up those tickets by golly I'm writing them all back on he didn't give me the ticket he didn't give me the ticket so it doesn't matter what you do you know really when you get right down to it like I got to tell you honestly also that this is a series of books that almost never happened because one of the things that that kicked the whole thing off was this I really wanted to use a character that was very in blue Matic of Western Justice and I thought okay well new sheriff in town he's got to be a sheriff like that so I'll use this sheriff character and there was only one problem and that was that I knew absolutely nothing about being a sheriff so I thought okay well you know primary research material I had sat down like that and I had built my ranch I built the first portion of my ranch 24 by 36 log cabin looked at and I had my little redheaded foul-mouthed wife there like that and she you know I got it closed in enough that she wasn't going to cry make me go do more you know house building like that and so I can sit down and I wrote the first two chapters of the cold dish like that my first novel and I've been rapidly discovered I knew nothing about being a sheriff so I thought okay I'm gonna drive the 18 miles in and I'm gonna go find a sheriff like that to talk to so I drove into Buffalo look at which is Johnson County you can't see I go in this is pre 9/11 days like that so there's no bulletproof glass there's no computer rooms there's nothing like that there's a wood counter and then there's a doorway open down the hall with a guy with his boots up you know on the desk down there like that and so I walk in like at night you know I knock on the you know on the counter there like that and this guy goes what I mean I said hey sheriff can I talk to you for a minute my kidney comes out and spelled by the name of Larry Kirkpatrick really wonderful guy had been the sheriff there for about 12 years I'm looking at him trying to judge you know because I want a seasoned guy I don't want a six week wonder you know I'm looking at him and I'm thinking okay yeah this guy's about right look and so he says well come on back to my office like it and I go back in his office and I look in their bookshelves in his office and I don't mean to break the news to you guys but not all sheriff's have bookshelves in their offices so I go in there like I'm thinking okay well you know maybe I can talk him into this like I said my name is Craig Johnson I've got a little ranch out near you cross and I'm writing this novel about a Wyoming sheriff and I was wondering if you'd be willing to vet the chapters if you'd be willing to go through and kind of make sure you know procedurally if it all makes kind of sense you know as far as the sheriffing is concerned they said well I've never done anything like that before like that and I said well I'm not really looking to you for literary criticism I'm looking to you you know for into procedural aspects and he said well yeah I'd be willing to try it I'd be willing to take a shot you know readin it and seeing what I could do with it and so I was so relieved I walked out of that office and I went back to the ranch and add it on to my house and then I built a shop mm-hmm and then I built Corral's and fences and I built a barn and I did all this and and what happened was I opened up that third drawer down on the right hand side in those two lonely little chapters were looking up at me and almost ten years had gone by so I pulled those two lonely little chapters out and I reread them and I looked at him and I know lo and behold in ten years I had not learned a damn thing about being a sheriff from you know and I thought this is gonna be really embarrassing I'm gonna have to go back in I'm gonna have to reintroduce myself to this sheriff you know and start all over again and I knew it was still the sheriff because I voted for him three times and so I hadn't when you girded my loins to the point where I was you know willing to go in there and talk with him like that but I did have to go put gas in my truck so I go into Buffalo look I'm sitting there the Texaco station you know putting gas in my truck and across the pump Island this Cruiser pulls in beside me and this guy gets out and he drops his sunglasses down and he tips his hat back like this and folds his arms and looks at me from across the pump island and it was a look that I recognized it was one of those looks that said what did I arrest you for and when was it and so I look at him I hang up the gas pump and I thought this is gonna be even more embarrassing than I thought because it's gonna be in public like it and so I hung up the gas pump and I stepped across the stuck out my hand and I said Sheriff Kirkpatrick you're not gonna remember me and he looks at me he says your name is Craig Johnson you're the one that lives in you cross Wyoming and you're the one that's right in a mystery novel about a Wyoming sheriff this was a five-minute conversation from almost 10 years previous and I looked at him and I said that is absolutely amazing and he looked back at me he goes yeah yeah this novel it's going kind of slow well that pissed me off so I went home and I wrote the rest of the cold dish in about six months like it was like about 650 pages long it was kind of like war and peace and Absaroka County and and I kind of had to cut it down a little bit like that but Larry helped me like that and he would read the chapters as I would go along and I got to about chapter four and I'm you know I'm having coffee one morning Judy and I are and and all of a sudden I hear the sirens you know and I see the lights coming up the ranch road look at and all of a sudden this cruiser comes sliding to a stop right there in front of the house so I walk out on the front porch with my cup of coffee and I walk out there and Larry you know raises up out of there and he looks up at me he says I know who did it and I said Larry you're only four chapters into a 16 chapter book with an epilogue are you sure you want to you know play your cards now he said jump I'm a trained professional I know who did it so I said alright well who did it he guessed and he was wrong he said damn got back in his car and turned around went back out down down ranch road two weeks later I deliver him another chapter you know I sent another chapter in to him to read and he you know calls me up on the phone he says I know who did it now and I said Larry you can't guess after every chapter you said hell I cants my chance my County I can guess as many times as I want I said all right well then who do you say did it like any guess he was wrong again and I said Larry I got to tell you I'm starting to feel a lot less secure about the law enforcement in my County I got to tell you and he said well you're just changing it every time I guess I said no Larry I've got a ten-year-old outline you know on a legal pad over here like that that I you know any well let me see it no no I'm gonna let you see it and every time like that you that you're guessing I'm sorry you know but but you're wrong like that and so I was fortunate enough like that that I kept Larry guessing all the way through till the end and he's kind of handy like that because he continues you know to to read the books you know and vet those chapters for me like that and it's it's kind of a nice relationship to have I have to be honest with you but the newest one in the in the series is actually called the dark horse and that's this one here like that I'm sure you can all read it from back there and the Dark Horse is actually the fifth in the series look at and it's actually my attempt to try and write a novel in the very extremely small niche of mystery field which is High Plains noir matter of fact this might be about it as far as that is concerned like that um but it actually started like that most of my novels start off you know with some sort of they they're absolutely humorless I can assure you but my novels they start out with usually it's a newspaper article symptom will spark my interest like that and I'll think you know that's a good story maybe I can use that and then it's going to make some sort of cultural commentary or social commentary you know through the through the novel and what had happened was there was an individual that came to my notice actually through a newspaper article and I'm happy to say that with the wall the Washington Post stuff around here these days and they served as breakfast this morning so I owe him already but they actually what happened was I read this article it was about this individual who had bought a large ranch in western Nebraska and it basically cut everybody off from their right of ways and from there filed on people's water rights and all this kind of stuff and very rapidly became the most hated men in western Nebraska which I guess is a most sought-after title as a matter of fact like that and so what had happened was he had come into this town to have a beer and had whipped into this town square like that small town just above Sydney like that there in western Nebraska whips in parks you know here's the bar you know it's a Saturday night thirty or forty people are there in the bar like that he whips in like that in parks and all of a sudden another truck comes in and lodges him in from behind and then the driver's side window drops down on that pickup truck and a nine millimeter Ruger comes out and fires fourteen shots into the cab of this guy's truck well it's true that only the good die young because this guy basically escaped unscathed I mean you know whoever was is a lousy shot you know so he didn't get touched like it and so I'm talking to the DCI guy's Division of Criminal Investigation guys and one of the sheriff's deputies who was in charge of the investigation he said they you know rounded up everybody from in the bar like that they started asking them questions and they said well did you know see the license plate you know of the truck that lodged you know him in well now nobody saw the license plate the lodging you know of the truck that lodged mmm which is not unusual because we're not trained to look for that immediately it might be something that you slipped by so then everybody asked they said you know when anybody see you know the guy that was driving the truck no nobody saw the guy that was driving the truck nobody knew who he was or anything like this you're starting to see a pattern here aren't you anybody see what color the truck was no nobody saw what color the truck was nobody saw anything like that and so they said that you know whenever the shooting started the first thing they did was everybody dove underneath the pool table - trying to stay safe and the sheriff's deputy from over Nebraska looks at me says Craig that must be the biggest damn pool table in all of Nebraska because that night there were 20 or 30 people you know underneath it like that definitely trying to keep from getting shot like that and so what I did was is I actually took that instance like that and a number of you know I guess weeks later they say individual actually turned up dead and they were doing some questioning with the local people and they asked the woman who lived next door they said did you hear anything you know no didn't hear anything did you see anything no I didn't see anything I have expected her to say she was hiding under the pool table at the time like a but they said do you have any idea who might have killed this individual like that and I guess she was smoking a cigarette and she flicked the ashes off of reports and looked at him and said open up a phone book and take your pick and I thought oh that's dark for a little town and so basically what happens in the in the dark horse like that is there's this woman by the name of Mary Barsad like that who's brought over to Walt's jail and Walt's jail in Absaroka County is a very low occupancy jail like they were you know simply because Walt's the one who sleeps there the majority of the time like that and so over in Campbell County it's a little bit you know a little bit more busy like that and so they bring this woman over and and Walt provides what he refers to as a high security low amenity lodging for a portion of their tax base like that and he's there the problem isn't that she shot her husband in the head six times with a Ruger varmint rifle and the reason that she did this was is because he took her prize cutting horses locked them up in a barn and then burned the barn down with the horses inside and the and I'd like to tell that part of the story is because I like looking out into the audience and seeing all that the female equestrians who are nodding their heads and going Ahuh uh-huh is there a murder later on in the book you know something for Walt to do or and what happens is is that she she she admits that she did the crime but Walt doesn't believe her because she talks in her sleep and he starts thinking something's not right here and I need to go out there and I need to start asking some questions like it may be trying to find out what it was that really happened which leads to Walt Longmire's first undercover operation and I think it's by about page five or six that wall makes the remark that he should have understood the inherent difficulties of going undercover in a town of 40 and at that point I'm going to shut up like that because I will keep talking until they bring a hook out here and drag me off like I realized that we only have about eight minutes for questions and since questions are one of my favorite portions like that I want to stop at this point and allowed you guys to ask some questions so feel free now's your chance and I think you have to use the microphones just so everybody can hear your questions yes okay I sold a novel last year huh it's my first one honey money March congratulations well I'm not I'm not gonna make a publicity grab or anything so no don't worry about that but I wanted to ask you if you had any advice for first-time novelist people who are just getting published now huh I mean everybody wants me to set up on Twitter and Facebook yeah you know what the first thing I whenever in doubt I was go to Lyndon Baines Johnson like that you know never turned down an opportunity for a free meal or a chance to go to the bathroom and I think as a novelist I mean I don't know what what genre you write in or look at what type of knobs on history is it okay I think the biggest thing for me like that is always you know to try and keep the books as real as possible and I never want to write a book where a waltz on a cruise ship or something like that I always feel like you know whenever I'm writing the books I want to make sure that I'm dealing with something that's you know within the culture and in this society that you know that I'm used to look at and so for me it's just a question of trying to keep it real and not looking for plot devices or clever you know twists of plot I mean I think it was vultaire that said you know clever ideas come and go like that but I think one of the big things for me is it's always going to come down to the characters it's always gonna come down to the people in the books and to be honest you know whenever I you know whenever my first book got sold a Viking penguin I was I was sitting there having lunch with Kathryn Court who's the president of penguin USA she's just an absolute doll of a woman and I had written the cold dish as a standalone book and she had it there she had the arc for it you know at the lunch table like that and so she slid it out between us like it she said I we would like some more of these books and I said I'd be happy to write some more books for you guys that's not a problem at all like that and she said no we would like some more of these books and I said what do you series of books we think these characters are interesting enough what you really need to start thinking about the possibility of doing sequels to this and writing it as a series and I with all the knowledge of not even having had one book published started arguing with the president of penguin going oh I don't think that's a very good idea I don't think that all and you know I mean that's part of the big deal there like that is to actually listen to your editors like it and listen to the publishers and your agents like that because they've kind of been down that trail like that and they kind of know you know what's coming okay and so it's kind of nice to keep that in mind like that as far as that's concerned I think and just you know keeping it real trying to make it as real as you can possible to keep it yes man I've just discovered your books and MD I'm dreadfully sorry oh I'm dreadfully pleased it's always wonderful to discover an author you haven't yet read and have several books ahead of you thank you but um you have such interesting characters between Vicki and Ruby and dog uh-huh and bear yes could you comment on how you've developed such interesting characters as a part of you for instance you said your wife is red-headed and she yeah I can't imagine where it is that I could have possibly come up with a foul mouth under deputy that was female I have no idea it was a complete run full blown from the head of Zeus you know I yeah I you know what it would be really horrible for you to ever come to my part of Wyoming because you would probably meet most of the people that are in my books and you would say this guy's really not that good of a writer he just knows lots of interesting people and I think that's the first quote that's on my web page is is that you know people you know ask me where I get my interesting characters and if they lived in northern Wyoming they wouldn't ask me that but you need to be quite honest like that a lot of them do have like you know semblances especially an awful lot of the Indian characters and I do say Indian because all my Indian friends make fun of me when I say Native American they always go where were you born and you know but a lot of them are based off of real people that are up on the rez up on the northern cheyenne reservation because i feel more comfortable with that and and even though i'm writing you know about those type of indian characters like that i'm not you know like like that's kind of like what margaret said I'm not particularly Indian even though my good friend Marcus writ under has a t-shirt that says I'm one sixty-fourth white but I can't prove it it's my favorite t-shirt and he won't give it up because it would lose all of its impact on me you know completely but he is an awful lot of like the characters and the people that I know like that to develop those characters like that and Marcus is probably the biggest influence as far as as Henry is concerned like that Henry Standing Bear like that and one of the great things that he does very very well like that is it the sense of humor the Indian sense of humor is incredible I mean it just blows me away all the time okay and I guess this is an example of that a quick example of that and when I was doing research for my second book death without company I discovered that there had been a Mennonite Church up on the Northern Cheyenne reservation and I remember asking Marcus about I said Marcus Mennonites on the rez and all he did was look up and go it didn't take it's all he said mm-hmm it was enough is there a real counterpart for daug actually yeah there was like that there was a dog that I actually bought rubbed him by like that I got at the pound and Sheridan like that and brought home what getting my veterinarian was giving him a look over and he was like about 80 pounds and I thought he was a tiny little puppy right and he was at 80 pounds like it and so whenever the vet was looking him over he said you know this dogs got some Saint Bernard in him and he maxed out at about 145 pounds like that and so yeah and that was kind of one of the things that I had to laugh about because a lot of mystery writers you get a lot of advice when you're first starting out and one of the big things they said was do not have any pets don't have you know your character have any pets cuz then you got to take care of and all that kind of thing that's anything I'm what's that's lousy because I got to take care of my animals why shouldn't they have to take care of theirs like it and so so I gave him the dog like that which is really good because nine times out of ten he's driving in the truck and the long-distances you know in Wyoming and I got two choices either he can talk to himself or he can talk to the dog and in this book I actually got to use one of my favorite lines in the sense the ball gets out of the truck and he turns back and he looks at the dog and he says don't play with the radio and he gets a couple of steps away and he says to himself it was kind of our joke he knew he could play with the radio if he wanted to yes ma'am you know my father says I come from a long line of bullshitters I'm just the first one to be smart enough to ride him down but my mother is the storyteller in the family look at and I think that you know one thing I learned very rapidly I mean those of you who ranch like at her farm or anything like that you know just how much free time in your mind you might have you know while you're shoveling at the barn you know and and I think that you know a lot of times like that one of the things that you learn when you're doing well because I did construction I did a lot of different jobs and ranching and all of that like I think one of the things you learn very quickly is that in the West and anywhere else like that they're they're valuable traits like that that people have like it's somebody you can rebuild a small-block motor that's a valuable trait somebody you can like you know stitch up a star quilt I can cook a good meal like that's a that's a valuable trait it's valuable commodity somebody who can tell a story that's a valuable commodity I mean I've been stuck on linemen camps like that for three days with a guy whose only vocabulary was you know that's a long three days you know okay and and so then you get up there with somebody who can tell stories like that and it just becomes a wonderful thing and I think that it was kind of just a natural progression to go from telling stories to writing stories you know and to not let you know my formal education in writing get in the way of actually being able to do that and so I think that you know that was one of the things that helped like that and then I think I also came from a family of readers we had stacks of books everywhere like that and I have stacks of books everywhere my idea of Hell is to be caught somewhere without a book you know I want them you know I want him like in the in the side you know in the books you know in the bookshelves you know in the center console on my truck in my tack shed I've got a whole stack of books you know that I can you know pluck one out if I'm waiting you know for the horse trough to refill like that I mean I gotta have books with me wherever I am like that you know and you know it's it's it's important to me and I think that was just a progression of that I believe somebody else was over here like that but I guess they ran off like that so yeah I did I answered your question Wow I have actually I'm actually out of time like that so I guess I can't ask any answer any more questions like that say thank you very much for having me this has been a presentation of the Library of Congress visit us at loc.gov

Channel: Library of Congress

Views: 10,814

Rating: 4.9130435 out of 5

Keywords: library, congress, national, book, festival, reading, literature, authors, westerns

Id: qwftsWBxhaw

Length: 30min 44sec (1844 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 02 2009