Western Book Roundup
Why Cody, Wyoming is the New Literary Capital of America
By Jenny Shank, 2-24-10
Wyoming has the smallest population of any U.S. state, but it maintains a literary output that rivals most other places. While it’s been a quiet year so far for writers in Colorado (population 4,939,456, according to 2008 Census Bureau projections), writers in Wyoming (population 532,668) have been publishing at a good clip over the past few weeks.
Laramie’s Alyson Hagy kicked things off in early February with the publication of her fourth story collection, Ghosts of Wyoming. Claiming Ground, a memoir by Cody’s Laura Bell, is due out March 9, and it comes with glowing blurbs from Rick Bass, Kent Haruf, William Kittredge, and Mark Spragg. Haruf writes, “This is a book that compels you to the last sentence, both because of its sheer beauty and its profound meaning.” Spragg writes, “Laura Bell’s Claiming Ground is the finest memoir I’ve read.” I guess I’d better read it myself.
Knopf will publish Spragg’s third novel, Bone Fire, on March 11. Spragg is also from Cody, (population 9309), which means that .0215% of Cody’s population will publish a book in March. To put that in perspective, writers in New York City (population 8,363,710) would have to publish 179,820 books in March to keep up with Cody’s per capita output. Even if you include self-published writers, I doubt New York’s scribes could produce that many volumes, especially given that about 172,000 books were published for the entire year in the United States in 2005, the most recent year for which UNESCO’s publishing statistics are available.
The Wyoming Authors Wiki lists 52 writers with connections to Park County, Wyoming, where Cody is located. It also lists 18 deceased writers—including William “Buffalo Bill” Cody himself, author of such works as 1927’s Life and Adventures of Buffalo Bill—so even Cody’s cemeteries are packed with literary talent. And so, with the power vested in me by no one, I anoint Cody, Wyoming the new literary capital of the United States.
That’s not to snub Carbon County, where Annie Proulx was based before her recent move to New Mexico, or Teton County, where Alexandra Fuller lives, or Ucross, population 25, home to award-winning mystery novelist Craig Johnson. Wyoming-native mystery-thriller novelist C.J. Box lives near Cheyenne, and his new Nowhere to Run hits stores on April 6, rounding out several busy weeks for Wyoming writers.
If you can’t make it up to Cody next month to attend the joint book signing/tour kickoff for Mark Spragg and Laura Bell on March 9 at The Thistle (2 p.m.), don’t worry, because Cody will be coming to you. Spragg and Bell will be touring all over the region, visiting 24 bookshops in Billings (Barnes & Noble, March 10, 7 p.m.), Red Lodge (Red Lodge Books, March 12, 3 p.m.), Boulder (Boulder Book Store, March 16, 7:30 p.m.), Bozeman (Country Bookshelf, April 20, 7 p.m.), Missoula (Fact & Fiction, April 21), and many more places in Montana, Utah, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and California. One can only hope Spragg and Bell will be hawking some sort of triumphant “We’re From Cody, Read Our Dust” t-shirt on the tour.
• Not all literary activity in the region is confined to Wyoming: several Colorado writers have been busy polishing their books and getting them into print, and this Saturday, Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver is sponsoring a panel called “The Story of A Book,” in which the authors will explain the process of how their books came to be. Nick Arvin, whose novel The Reconstructionist is due out in 2011, Phyllis Barber, author of the memoir Raw Edges, Jay P.K. Kenney, who wrote Great Road Rides Denver, Cara Lopez Lee, author of the memoir They Only Eat Their Husbands, and Lynn Wagner, whose poetry chapbook No Blues This Raucous Song is out now with Slapering Hol Press, will discuss the “ins and outs of the process they’ve enjoyed (or endured) in getting their manuscripts from crazy first idea and into actual print.” “The Story of A Book” takes place at 910 Arts in Denver (910 Santa Fe Drive) on Saturday, February 27 (6:30 p.m.). Lighthouse asks that attendees email their RSVP to info@lighthousewriters.org.
• My “Recycle, Compost, or Trash? A Guide,” is up on McSweeney’s. I had the idea for this one when it took me ten minutes to figure out what bin to put my used plate in at the farmer’s market in Boulder. I’m sure nobody has that problem in Cody.
Please follow me on Twitter and with any regional books news or events.
[End of article]Rare is the day that my hometown and residence of Cody is held up as being a sterling vessel for anything not involving rodeo, the myth of Buffalo Bill , or the Sagebrush Rebellion. Especially when it comes to the humanities, which around here means a recurring subscription to Guns & Ammo or having lots of John Wayne movies in your VHS tape video collection.
( One small correction: former Wyoming authoress Annie Proulx of Brokeback Mountain fame has since moved the New Mexico. )
Dewey,
You're right, Annie Proulx has moved to New Mexico, as she told the L.A. Times in this 2008 interview:
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/18/entertainment/et-proulx18
But after three acclaimed books of Wyoming stories, I still think the state can claim her as one of its literary stars.
Now go out and celebrate Cody's new title by doing something arts-and-craftsy!
i just recently read mark spragg's, "an unfinished life", and "where rivers change directions". both books were great but i particularly enjoyed "where rivers change directions". the book weaves a wonderful story of life, death, mountain, prarie, elk, griz, and family struggles set in our northwest wyoming.
a must read.
Addendum: I forgot to mention that although Mark Spragg keeps some Cody connections ( and maybe the family cabin) and did in fact grow up here , technically he lives in Red Lodge MT 65 miles away.
I'm still trying to figure out who all these dead authors packing the Cody cemetary are. None come to mind offhand.
I'll leave you with my pet slogan :
Cody Wyoming- next to the Last Best Place
I wonder who Mark may have plagiarized this time, after plagiarizing my novel 'Gib: A Contemporary Western' his last time out, after I showed him the mss when we were neighbors in Wapiti.
Comment By donald barr, 2-25-10Now just get those ranchers to read the books, and alot of people will be happy, as well as the wild horses.
Comment By dave, 2-25-10tell us more john
Comment By donald barr, 2-25-10see I told you they can't read
Comment By Jon R Horton, 2-25-10Buy a copy of the book on Amazon or B&N;read it and compare the copyright dates. In the movie he even had the nerve to dress Jaylo's boyfriend in the Park County Sheriff's Office uniform I wore when he knew me.
Comment By John Clayton, 2-25-10Dewey: The Wyoming Author's Wiki -- source for Jenny's "cemetery" comment -- includes some "Codyites" with rather tenuous connections (such as Ernest Hemingway). But two accomplished, deceased, legitimate Cody authors are Buffalo Bill and Caroline Lockhart. Alas, neither is literally in the Cody cemetery. William F. Cody was, controversially, interred in Colorado, and Lockhart's ashes were scattered over the Dryhead.
Comment By Dewey, 2-25-10uh...Buffalo Bill is buried on top of Lookout Mountain west of Denver, a source of great consternation in Cody WY snce his chosen burial palce was here, not there, but the Denver Post acquired his body from the widow in order to settle some debts. True story The 1917 fuenral for the Colonel was a worldly event, attended by heads of state and notables; probably the largest Denver had seen before or since, honestly. L'il ole Cody Wyo could never have pulled that off.
And Caroline Lockhart is not buried there either ...her cremain ashes were in a small tin can on her good friend' Vern Spencer's fireplace mantle for decades. I've held them in my hands. So those two at least are not in any local Cody cemetary.
As for the Hemingway connection ...that's real. He used to spend good time in the Cody-Cooke City-Red Lodge triangle back when we had regular passenger rail service all the way to Chicago ...writing and fishing; not necessarily in that order. Many tales I could impart. He would spend a good part of the day in the Log Cabin Saloon typing away and dispatching his manuscripts and drinking c. 1929 ; again in no particular order.
I'm a lifelong resident native of Cody , and published myself , and always involved with the media , yet I cannot name any notable authors buried in Cody ...just a few local scribes who wrote small stuff and local history , like Mary Jester Allen ( Buffalo Bill's niece and self-appointed biographer). I just looked over that list at the Wyoming Authors Wiki and nobody jumped out. Honestly. All small fry Codycentric niche selfpublishers or junior college scholars for the most part. ( Full disclosure: I've ghost written for a couple of them )
There is/was a homely farm wife about 35 miles east of here in Burlington WY who has over 30 harlequin romance novels under her apron. You'd never know it to look at her if you saw her in Wal-Mart ---you'd walk right past here---that she's probably got more general circulation titles in print than anyone else in Wyoming.
Not to bust anybody's bubble here, but this article is a fluff piece.
You got me, Dewey, I am guilty of fluff with this--I was being facetious, or trying to. If you take my premise to its logical conclusion, then every time Rick Bass publishes a book, a high percentage of Yaak Valley residents are publishing.
I appreciate all the comments by everyone with accurate knowledge of Wyoming, Cody, and its literary inhabitants.
With this post, I just wanted to point out the recent burst of good books coming out of Wyoming and mention the Spragg-Bell tour, and I thought this would be a more entertaining approach to take than to simply list the tour dates. And hey, it got all of you reading it and commenting on it, didn't it?
Yours in fluff production,
Jon R Horton: As a writer yourself, you must understand the seriousness of a charge of alleged plagiarism. I know that if I was the subject of your accusation, I would be shaking right now in fury or horror.
But plagiarism involves the theft of words: phrases, sentences, paragraphs. It can sometimes be extended to the theft of ideas or concepts, but only when these are truly unique -- not "Korean war veterans" or "struggling ranches" or "characters wearing sheriff's uniforms," all of which appear in hundreds of novels every year.
Please do not make such an incendiary (and, on the face of it, absurd) charge -- especially in such a generally-supportive public forum (thanks Jenny!) -- without explicitly citing the specific sentences and paragraphs you claim were lifted from your work.
I wouldn't worry obout it, not ones reading it.
Comment By Jon R Horton, 2-25-10Try, as I keep suggesting, reading the book with an open mind. You will find plenty of supporting evidence in it, including the characters and most of the setting. He had to move the book out of the perfect setting, the Absarokas, and away from Cody and the Yellowstone because that's where my book (and the screenplay the novel was based on) was set. Of course, reading the book would probably be too much trouble, as Don keeps saying. Spragg is always trembling with fury when he doesn't get his way. I knew him very well when he was my 'neighbor' and lived across the road in Wapiti.
Comment By donald barr, 2-26-10How many people are we talking about in wyoming that would even read this book-10 15 20 tops I keep telling people in Wyoming don't read, they just make stuff up. kind of like you guys when you write a story.
Comment By Jon R Horton, 2-26-10Jenny, removing me from "further Contacts" is contemptible without investigating whether my claim has any merit or not. It brings into question whether all of your opinions, literary or otherwise, are biased.
Comment By donald barr, 2-26-10I hear some one starting to cry, give me a name of someone that has read this book, I will track them down,
Comment By jon R Horton, 2-26-10Hmmmm. You don't read yourself? Are you from Wyoming.
Comment By dave, 2-26-10donald, give us all a break and turn off your computer.
Comment By donald barr, 2-26-10ok I will stop, but you are so funny
Comment By Michael Bartley, 2-28-10Wow, Jenny what happened here? I go away for a few days and come back to the old think i'll do anything but what i'm supposed to be doing intertubesbox to check out your latest and I see you have some great info. on Spragg and Bell and then notice an unusual number of comments and then, apparently, my brain explodes. Is this a joke? What am I missing? Anyway, thanks for the info. on Spragg I've really enjoyed his work. I am really looking forward to Laura Bell's book. Oh, and your Cody is the literary center made me chuckle. I wish I could say the same about the comments.
Comment By Richard S. Wheeler, 3-02-10Looks like Cody has made off with the laurels. For a while there it was Missoula, and then Livingston got into the act with the argument that its writers actually make a living at it, while Missoula's are mostly professors who sell 200 copies. But then some Livingston writers moved out of town--not far, actually, but the diaspora was enough so that the true global capital of literary endeavor is Big Timber, Montana. Gatz Hjortsberg lives in both places, so he counts double. But Tom McGuane and Tom Brokaw are strictly Big Timber now.
Comment By Traci M., 3-02-10Has anyone here read Shank's “Recycle, Compost, or Trash? A Guide,” on McSweeney’s? It's hilarious. She linked to it at the end of this article. Read it. It's definitely lighter than parts of this discussion. Thanks for that, Jenny. -t
Comment By donald barr, 3-03-10Step back away from the books, put the book down, step backwards away from the books, open the door walk out the door and ( get out more)
Comment By Mike Shay, 3-05-10Jenny, you really stirred up the blogosphere. Wyoming does claim Annie Proulx. Well, not everyone. She received death threats after the movie "Brokeback Mountain" came out. She moved from Centennial to Saratoga in Wyoming and then came the L.A. Times story and nobody seems to know where she went. I think she prefers it that way. Annie may still be on the Ucross Foundation board and used to have a writing cabin in the Big Horn Mountains. As for Mark Spragg and his residency -- he lives in both Cody and Red Lodge. Since Red Lodge is but a suburb of Cody, Mark's claim as a Wyoming resident is solid.
Comment By Dewey, 3-05-10"Since Red Lodge is but a suburb of Cody... "
As a 4th generation Cody native, I have to say that both towns would take offense at this statement. We burb to no one around here.
Cody , as we well know, is the out of wedlock child of much older Meeteetse, and Red Lodge is one of the Triplet Cities :Red Lodge , Bear Creek , and Luther.
Didn't know that "burb" was a verb. But I see what you mean.
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