Speaking of Speaking

I was contacted yesterday by a local guy who had missed my Sunday presentation on "The Forts of Nebraska" at the Papillion library and wanted to know when I had my next one scheduled. I had to check booktour.com (where I keep my appearance dates in case you're interested) and found that was my last one for the Omaha area and that I have only one more planned, that at the "Wine, Writers and Song" festival at Brownville in April.

I reviewed my log just out of curiosity and found that I've given that program 20 times since September 2008; as a Nebraska Humanities Council presentation I've given it eight times, at sites ranging from the Lewis & Clark Center in Nebraska City to Scotts Bluff National Monument at the western edge of the state.

I also offer a program on the forts along the Union Pacific, which has been given twice, and one on the "Lost Forts of the Northern Plains," a review of seven fort sites forgotten by time and history (that one has been requested four times).

The MOST presented program I've given since I started speaking in 2008 has been "The Forts of Omaha and Council Bluffs" - that one has been offered 39 times in the metro area here. I've really been surprised - for one thing at how many groups need speakers - but also at how many DIFFERENT groups are interested in the talk. This presentation has been given to history-minded groups, libraries, a state park, museums, military groups, service clubs, neighborhood associations, retirement centers, a book club, a church and even the Omaha Association of the Blind!

Eventually you run out of groups to hear a particular talk, but I'm making plans to fill the void. For one thing, I'm putting together a "Forts of Wyoming" talk for a June roadtrip out west; I'm also building a program on death on the Plains which I hope will get me back to places I've visited before. Kind of a gruesome topic, but there are people (like me) who are interested in things like that!

History at the Historical Society

Yesterday I gave a "brown bag" lecture over the noon hour at the Nebraska Museum of History in Lincoln. This was a place I'd wanted to be since I started speaking about a year and a half ago - it's the home of Nebraska history, the equivalent of singing at the Met if you're an opera singer!

The historical society did a great job of promoting it as well - it was ALMOST standing room only in their lecture room (seating for 40) to hear about the Forts of Nebraska. One of my sources for my current book and one from my next book were both in attendance, as were quite a few fellows in uniform which is always great to see.

The talk went very well - if you live in Lincoln, they're running it on Time Warner Cable Channel 5 (the government access channel). I'm kind of getting to know the guys from TW as they were at the Bennett Martin Library in November for my reading there.

Today I'm at a senior home in Papillion and return to Papio on Sunday for a Nebraska forts presentation at the library there. I hope it's a good turnout - my wife said someone at her work said "it's plastered all over town." My heart skipped a beat when I realized this talk was scheduled for the same day that the Vikings are playing for the NFC championship, but crisis averted - they're on for the evening game.

Toughening Up My Skin

There's a sad little fact about writers once they get published - we tend to Google ourselves every now and then to see if anything is being said about us and what we've written.

In my defense, I don't do it every day, every week or even every month. That's how it came to be that I didn't see this April review from the Bismarck Tribune until earlier this week. Of course, the headline "Guide to military forts lacks depth" got my attention because I'd never had a bad review to Forts.

The Tribune actually turns its reviews over to "citizen reviewers" - when books come in, they let readers know and, if one of them is interested, he or she can do a review. In this case, one of the state's district court judges took my book.

Strangely, he focused on the book's introduction, devoting more words to that than to the book itself. Using my own words out of context, he said the book was limited in scope, had little history to it, and required the reader to drive to the sites himself if he wanted to learn anything about them! He also added a couple of things that weren't true (saying most of the forts were reconstructed and run by historical societies) and couldn't have been interpreted from the book. He said the travel information was really about the only thing that the book contained, but he was looking forward to using that after his retirement when he drove his convertible around the region.

I did exchange a couple emails with the judge - I was very civil in asking him if he had even read the book - but his remarks were short and dismissive (i.e., "I stand by my review" and "Goodbye, Mr. Barnes"). I did respond online to his review, and you can see that on the "discussion" tab after clicking the link above.

I suppose I should be toughening my skin for things like this, but I don't think it's too much to ask for a reviewer to actually go through the pages of a book and maybe read a chapter or two!
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This week (Thursday) I'm presenting "Forts of Nebraska" at the Nebraska Museum of History, 15th and P in Lincoln. Their monthy "brown bag lecture" is at noon and I hope to see some of you there! If you miss it and live in the area, I'm told that Time/Warner Cable Channel 5 will air it later.

Happy Holidays!

I did NOT realize it had been almost two months since my last post, so I apologize if you're counting on me for regular updates!

The last post was from Texas, so I'll give just a quick recap since then: November was fairly busy with seven presentations ranging from the Atkinson (Nebr.) Public Library, the local chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America at the Joslyn Art Museum, the Saunders County (Nebr.) Historical Museum and the Bennett Martin Public Library in Lincoln. The last was particularly good for me as I was presenting for the Ames Reading Series there, with the talk recorded for local cable.

I also tried a new venue for book sales that has worked out fairly well - gun shows! I had seen billboards for the Fremont Gun Show and, knowing it was well established and probably had a lot of historical gun collectors of the fort period, I gave the organizers a call and rented a table. It worked out better than I hoped! Sales were very good and met some people who had great information for me on other projects. I tried the O'Neill show a couple weeks later - sales were also decent there, but my table was set up in a very awkward location for people to get to, and I was also confronted by my first heckler!

This guy came up to my table and immediately challenged me on what I knew about the "tunnels of Fort Robinson." He didn't want to say any more than that, but finally let on that he was talking about tunnels that the soldiers had at the fort to get to the brothels in town. "I was going to buy the book until I found out you didn't have anything about the tunnels!" he said. I let him know it was a travel guide rather than a recount of purient fort activities, but he decided to spend another 10 minutes with me to cover things I didn't know. I finally shut him up by letting him know he was mispronouncing Fort "Harstuff" (it's Hartsuff), but what an ordeal! I did have to check Tom Buecker's books on Fort Rob when I got home - nothing about tunnels in either, so the guy may well have been COMPLETELY full of it.

Only one talk in December and that was last night for the Spring Lake Neighborhood Association in South Omaha. Nice sized group - they had me stay for their holiday potluck and Councilman Gary Gernandt was also in attendance!

To close this report out, I want to wish ALL of you a very Merry Christmas and best wishes for a happy and prosperous New Year. Oh, and GO HUSKERS!

Deep in the Heart of Texas

I'm now in the second day of a trip to Austin, Texas, for the annual Order of the Indian Wars Assembly. The OIW is a great organization for the kind of writing that I do, and this year's conference was particularly appealing for a number of reasons:
1) I finally get to meet probably the top Old West historian in the country, Robert Utley. Bob did a "jacket blurb" for my book, but I'd never met him before.
2) One of the tours included a visit to the Custer headquarters in Austin. This is the only Custer military post on the Great Plains that I hadn't visited yet; as my next book will cover Custer on the plains, it's a "must see"!
3) I finally get to visit the Alamo - I've been a nut about that site for more than 20 years, but have never been.
4) It's also a chance to visit a number of Texas forts that I hadn't visited yet. I might get in as many as five on this trip, so knock wood.

The first day of the assembly included some great talks on Texas, Fort Parker, the lead-up to the Alamo, and the Kiowa chief Satanta. In between talks, I had the chance to do book sales and also see some familiar faces from my last trip with the OIW. And finally, got to meet Bob Utley! Great guy, happy to see me and he signed one of his books (there's been more than 50 I think) for me. I'll post a photo as soon as the blog lets me - some kind of glitch this morning.

Visited the state capitol after the conference - very cool. Today it's off to Waco and a visit to the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Fort Parker.

Moving Into the Fall

We were in the middle of summer the last time I wrote; now we've seen almost a third of the autumn. I hate to spend the first part of each blog in apologizing for not writing!

I made quite a few appearances around the area to close out the summer, including some senior homes, community events, and farmers markets. I also got in visits to two historic Nebraska sites - the John G. Neihardt State Historic Site in Bancroft and Fort Hartsuff State Historical Park near Burwell.

The Neihardt visit actually got booked almost a year ago when I met Nancy Gillis (the site administrator) at the Nebraska Book Festival in Lincoln; Sue and I went up to see a speaker at the site a week or so later, fell in love with the place and booked an appearance. My talk was Sept. 13 and we had a great turnout - about 35, including one man who heard about it on NPR and decided to make the ride over the Missouri from Iowa on his motorcycle! I enjoyed it very much, moreso since it was my first talk "in the round" with their circular meeting space.

Sue and I drove out to Fort Hartsuff on Sept. 26, a day before my scheduled talk in order to see a very unique and seldom-seen site from the Plains Indian Wars. When they asked me at the fort to come out for a talk, I asked if they could also get me to the "Battle of the Blowout" site in the nearby Sand Hills. In this 1876 skirmish - just two months before Little Bighorn - a group of six Sioux warriors had been pursued into a blowout atop the tallest of the surrounding hills. Troops from Fort Hartsuff surrounded them after their sargeant was shot and killed when looking over the rim to see if they were IN the blowout. The Indians later escaped, but not before three troopers rescued the sargeant's body and each earned a medal of honor for it.

A nearby rancher who does a lot of work at the fort took us out to the site; it wasn't on his land but a neighbor's so there were no problems. We made a jarring ride in the bed of four-wheel-drive pickup to the site and it was beautiful. Spent about an hour looking around before returning to town and watching the Nebraska game at the residence of the fort's assistant supervisor and his wife, Jim and Sally
Domeier. I also got some photos of the fort at dusk - absolutely the best time to view it.

We drove around the area for a bit on Sunday before my talk at the fort (and found my name up in lights at Burwell!) Since we had some time, I put together a quick slide show about the Blowout for after my talk for those interested.

The talk was in the barracks at the fort - really a neat site and perfect location for such a presentation. We ended up with around 50 in attendance for the "Forts of Nebraska" presentation, and before breaking for 20 minutes, I invited everyone to stick around for a presentation on the battle.

While I was signing books between shows, a man came up to me and said he HAD been to the site, because the site was on HIS land! I found out our guide HADN'T cleared it with him and we'd actually been trespassing.

He was a good sport about it, though - he came up during the talk and spoke a bit about the site and I gave him a copy of the book as a compensation.

This past Saturday was my last big event of recent weeks, my second "Forts of Omaha" bus tour through Metropolitan Community College. I had 13 attendees on this fall tour; this time we didn't have a visit to Fort Crook (Offutt AFB) due to maneuvers at the base, but still plenty to see.

The first stop was the Omaha Quartermaster Depot, which is closing next month after 139 years of active duty. We had a great tour from the former facility manager of the post, John Bryan, who was informative, witty and kept the pace moving. I reminded the group that they were probably the last members of the general public to tour this great site.

Next was a tour and lunch at the General Crook House at Fort Omaha. We got there a little early, but that gave us enough time to tour the Victorian Garden while the house was opened. The house tour was great, as was lunch; quite a few tour members were interested in taking on one of the house's tea parties.

The afternoon was spent at Fort Atkinson for the final weekend of the season for the living history demonstrations. This was the highlight of the day as people visited with the post's colonel and troops, baker, carpenter, weavers, blacksmith and tinsmith. After the lowering of the colors and final canon salute, we made a stop at the Super Bee Orchard at Council Bluffs to purchase some of the harvest of the season. Great day!

My next big event is a trip to Texas this month for the Order of the Indian Wars annual assembly. I'll get to visit the Alamo for the first time, meet one of the GREAT historians of the Old West, Robert Utley, and visit the Custer headquarters in Austin, the ONLY Custer site on the plains I've yet to see.

A BIG day in my writing career

I got some great news this week: Stackpole Books let me know that "Forts of the Northern Plains" was on their reprint list for August!

For a writer, that's almost as good as news that you're getting published - you might THINK there's a market for your work, and your publisher might think it will sell, but it's only when they run out at the warehouse that you KNOW there's a market. And that made me happy!

The nice thing about it is that the advance Stackpole sent me to sign the contract and deliver the manuscript is essentially paid off and I can now start collecting royalties. The not-so-nice thing is those checks are cut only twice a year and it's a VERY small percentage of each book's sale that I actually see. So I'll still be out there speaking and selling books myself!

Speaking of which, I've been keeping busy at that. I've been selling at the new Florence Mill Farmers Market - it's run by the owner of the mill and a friend of mine, Linda Meigs, and has turned out to be a pretty good outlet for sales! This weekend, however, I'll set up my tent at Columbus Days in Columbus, NE. I'm looking forward to this as it's my first appearance in the city (I've already had three in North Platte!) and it's always good to try out a new market.

Next week is a presentation on the "Forts of Nebraska" at the Gretna Public Library, and the next day is a trip to Oklahoma for my nephew's wedding. It's the same day as my birthday, so in return I've convinced the missus to allow me to visit the new visitor center at the Washita National Battlefield (lucky me!)

September includes a couple Kiwanis clubs, three senior communities, and two state sites for my Forts of Nebraska talks: the Neihardt Center in Bancroft and Fort Hartsuff. Looking forward to both of those, but the Hartsuff trip is especially anticipated because I've got a promise to get me to the site of one of the fort's few (maybe only) fights, the "Battle of the Blowout." Three Medals of Honor were given after this battle and few people know about it or have visited the site. I'll get plenty of pics!