How can I help you?

I like helping out fellow creatives, probably because I've received so little help of my own and so I know how hard this life is. If you're a follower of this blog, I'd be happy to have you as a guest blogger.

I've had several guest posts in the past and they generally get a large readership. I'm getting an average of 300 hits a day now and I announce every post on Facebook and Twitter. This blog is focused on the Civil War and the Wild West, with occasional posts about travel and history in general. If you have something you think might fit, I'd be happy to host you. If your book doesn't fit, I'm happy to take posts on writing as well, although I don't want to do too many of those since I want this blog to be outside the Indie Authors' Echo Chamber.

You don't even need to be a writer! Have you visited an interesting historic site and want to write it up? Are you are photographer? Wargamer? Reenactor? As long as it's related to the focus of this blog, I'm listening.

If you just want to make an announcement, drop me a line at the email in the lefthand column and I'll include it in my semiregular Reader News posts. I'm working on one for early next week if you have anything you'd like to share. It can be about writing, history, archaeology, adventure travel, etc.Book announcements are most welcome, but don't limit yourself to just those!

"Cut your hair, soldier!"

I'm reading The Civil War on the Border by Wiley Britton, a 1000-page magnum opus on the Trans-Mississippi Theater written by a Union veteran in the 1890s. It was one of the earliest books to exhaustively cover the war west of the Mississippi and contains lots of interesting anecdotes.

This one comes from early 1863. The First Arkansas Union Infantry at Fayetteville was a new unit and was filling up rapidly. Many were Arkansas Unionists who had been in hiding from Confederate recruiters or who had been conscripted into the rebel army and had deserted. When they joined the Union army they found life a little different.

"Long hair was the fashion in the South, in that section, and among Southern soldiers, and there was at least one instance where one of these Arkansas recruits refused to have his hair cut and had to be caught and held until the operation was performed, and where one man was sent to the guardhouse because he refused to serve as one of the detail to catch and hold the comrade for shearing."


Photo of unidentified Confederate First Lieutenant courtesy Cowan Auctions.

Please allow me to reintroduce myself

Today I'm participating in the Please Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself blogfest. This is a chance for bloggers to tell a little about themselves.

Hmm. . .where to start? I'm a Canadian who hasn't lived in Canada for decades. Instead I've lived in the U.S., Denmark, Bulgaria, England, and most presently Santander in the north of Spain. I spent ten years working as an archaeologist before becoming a full-time writer. Coolest thing excavated: the city gate at Tel Gezer, Israel, commissioned by King Solomon.

Besides writing and archaeology, I love to travel, and one of my writing jobs is for the Gadling travel blog. Scroll all the way to the bottom of this blog to see a map of where I've been. This photo, courtesy Leo Stolpe, shows yours truly atop a burnt out tank in Somaliland.

Other interests: silent films, B-movies, hiking, and caving. I'm also happily married and the proud father of a seven-year-old boy. It's a school holiday today in Santander so most of the people in this blogfest are going to have to wait until tomorrow for comments. The parents among you will understand!

The Italian Connection

My book Armies of the Adowa Campaign, about the disastrous Italian attempt to invade Ethiopia in 1896, has been translated into Italian by the publisher Editrice Goriziana. I haven't seen an actual copy yet, but I notice that they've changed the cover. You can see the new cover here.

I've also been invited to give a talk at a history conference in Italy this May. The subject of the conference is historical bandits, and my talk is tentatively called "Jesse James, Inc." I'll be talking about how Missouri's most famous outlaw was used to sell books, movies, tourist attractions, and generally make money. The process started even while Jesse was still running around robbing banks!

I'll post more details on this conference when the plans get finalized.

Interview with men's adventure author Hank Brown

Today we're chatting with action author Hank Brown, who is doing a blog tour for his most recent release, Tier Zero. Hank has come out with several novels and short stories in the men's adventure genre, a genre that was in the doldrums before the current publishing revolution. So with no further ado. . .

Checking out your list of publications, one that jumped to my attention was Radical Times, a Civil War story. Actually it's a Reconstruction story set in Arkansas right after the war. What made you pick a setting well away from the epic drama of the major battles?

Mostly it was because of history and my exposure to it. In school I had only learned the superficial facts about the Civil War...North, South, slaves, Abraham Lincoln...that was about it. Public school taught us even less about Reconstruction, which is to say: nothing.

Then about a year or two before I wrote Radical Times, I checked out a book from the library about that historic period. It blew me away how much I didn't know about it. And when that happens I'm compelled to set off on a researching spree. It annoys me how the truth of this tumultuous period are ignored, at best; or censored, at worst. Our present political dynamic depends on that ignorance (or censorship). Anyway, as all this information was floating around in my mind I began conceiving characters (as often happens). The story grew out of all that.

You served in the Armed Forces. Beyond the obvious, what are the main differences between warfare in the 1860s and the modern day? How is the soldier's experience different? Are there any similarities?

Beyond the obvious, I'd say it's the officers and men themselves that are most different, followed by the command doctrine. The US armed forces have become extremely top-heavy organizations, with a cumbersome bureaucracy only slightly less inept than the non-uniformed government institutions. The technology which enables unprecedented micromanaging runs the risk of turning fighting men into robots. The technological advantages and overwhelming air support our troops have enjoyed since WWII glosses over the chinks in our armor, of which I believe this is an example.

When Von Steuben was drilling Washington's troops to fight the British he remarked on what made the American soldier unique: You couldn't just institute a policy and expect Americans to follow it, without first explaining its purpose. That does not seem to be the case any longer. Once when training with some soldiers from the Mother Country, after Desert Storm, I remember the ironic moment when one of the Brits cried out in frustration about all the suffocating regulations he had to abide by while attached to the US Army. Holy historic role-reversal, Uncle Sam!

Old West Video: The Last Cowboy Song

Hey folks. This week there won't be the usual Photo Friday post because I'll have a special guest blogger coming in. So here are your Old West photos early, in video form! I recognize many of these photos from the Library of Congress collection and other collection. Others are new to me. The song is cool too. Enjoy!

A good book review and a strange one

Last week my Civil War novel A Fine Likeness received to more reviews. A new four-star review on the novel's Goodreads page says that while the reader isn't into paranormal, "The author does an excellent job in incorporating accurate Civil War and Missouri history and handles the military action sequences with ease. The tale reads smoothly and is a very easy read. The motivations of the main protagonists on both sides of the conflict are realistically developed."

He goes on to say: "A Fine Likeness is one of those novels that falls between genres: American historical fiction with a regional focus, paranormal, a bit of the "Western." That may limit the readership, but the writing shouldn't be penalized for that."

Yeah, that's one of the reasons I couldn't find a regular publisher. The rejection letters kept saying how they didn't know how to market it. So I'm marketing it myself!

The second review is from the Indie Book Review. It was positive ("intriguing" "timely") yet odd in places. While I'm not the kind of person who bites the hand that feeds him, I'm wondering why Captain Addison is referred to as "General Captain Addison" and how exactly my background as an archaeologist informs the novel.

But what the hey, don't look a good review in the details!