Meet and Greet Monday: Stephen Bly

Book Giveaway Drawing! (Details below.)

Stephen Bly resides in Winchester, Idaho at 4,000 ft. elev., on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation. He's been married 47 years to fellow writer, Janet Chester Bly, and they've co-authored 18 books.


Stephen is father of 3 sons: Russell, Michael, & Aaron. The family includes daughters-in-law, Lois, Michelle & Rina Joye, plus grandkids: Zachary, Miranda (& husband Chris), and Keaton.


As a third-generation westerner, Steve spent 30 years working family ranches and farms in central California.

When he's not writing Steve collects and restores antique Winchesters; studies histories of the Old West; and does construction on Broken Arrow Crossing (a false front western village next to his home). He also plays a par game of golf.
Recent books by Stephen Bly include: Creede of Old Montana (2009), The Land Tamers (re-issued 2009), One Step Over The Border, Center Street/Hachette; The Horse Dreams Series—Memories of a Dirt Road Town, The Mustang Breaker, and Wish I’d Known You Tears Ago (B&H); Paperback Writer (B&H); and Fortunes of the Black Hills Series (B&H Publishers).

Noteworthy Facts about Stephen Bly

* Author and co-author of 102 fiction and nonfiction books, including historical and contemporary westerns.
* Christy Award winner, Westerns, 2002, The Long Trail Home
* Christy Award finalist, Westerns, 2003
* Mayor of Winchester, Idaho, pop. 308 (1999-2007)
* Pastor of Winchester Community Church
* Speaker for men’s and writers’ groups, USA and Canada
* Roving editor, "Big Show Journal"
* Mentor, Jerry B. Jenkins Christian Writers Guild
* Represented by agent Chip MacGregor, MacGregor Literary
* Fresno State University, CA, Philosophy, summa cum laude
* M. Div., Fuller Theological Seminary, CA, 1974

Interview with Stephen Bly

 • How would you describe your new release?

It’s the closest to memoir that I’ve attempted in a novel. In 1954, I was 10-years-old and spent many hours playing cribbage and listening to narratives of the ‘old days’ from my grandpa.

A 10-year-old boy. Six old cowboys. A ’49 Plymouth with open trunk. And a damsel in distress. All the fixings for adventure in 1954 Albuquerque. Maybe you weren’t born 100 years too late.

The permanent residents of the old hotel: 5 old cowboys, 70s to 90s. Every week these five, plus a young boy’s (“Little Brother”) grandfather, play cribbage in the lobby. But that’s not the real focus. Their chief pleasure centers on tales of their riding and roping days. And every story mostly true. Those who paid attention, heard their hearts too.

The cowboys in my story retire in Albuquerque, not Santa Fe, because even in 1954 the latter was becoming the artsy, celebrity spot it is today. These guys needed a cheap hotel and city amenities. So, Albuquerque suited them fine. Before there were retirement communities and senior citizen housing, some elderly lived in old downtown hotels. Well past their prime to attract overnight guests, they catered to senior citizens who scraped by on something fairly new in the fifties: Social Security.

The eldest was born during the Civil War. All of them cowboyed from the late 1880s until the 1940s. They tell first-hand stories of what the West was truly like.

Cowboy For A Rainy Afternoon reminisces about real cowboy lives, much the same as Andy Adams’ book, The Log of a Cowboy, written in the early 1900s. Author’s suggestion: this book is best read aloud, as though around a campfire, by someone with a grasp of the rhythm of the language.

On one rainy afternoon, Little Brother sits with his red straw cowboy hat, cap gun, and leather bullet belt with silver-painted wooden bullets, to listen to cowboy tales, romps through past escapades. The old men delighted in their youthful, captive audience. Meanwhile, a drama unfolds, a story brews in the lobby that propels them all into one last cowboy stand.

(Click the link at the bottom of this post to read an excerpt from Chapter One of Cowboy for a Rainy Afternoon.)

• What message do you hope it conveys?

The heritage of courage against evil that one generation can pass on to another.

• What did you enjoy most about writing this book?

The definite sense throughout the process that I was right there in the lobby of that hotel and later riding in the ’49 Plymouth with all the characters. I was that young boy and re-living parts of my youth through him.

• What did you dislike most about writing this book?

Not being able to sit down and write it all in one full sweep. I hated having to write in-between other projects.

• What inspired you to become a writer?

It’s all my wife’s fault. She got me into it. After going to a couple writer’s conferences, she asked permission to submit some articles and short stories she edited out of my sermons. . .and took a book proposal from a study I’d done for college students to Mt. Hermon Christian Writers Conference. All of them were accepted. After I got the first checks I said, “Hey, I think I’ll do my own writing.”

So, it was my wife’s insistence that I had something to say to folks beyond my local congregation.

• Tell us about your writing process.

Step One – research, including on-site exploration.

Step Two – Build a bio on each main character.

Step Three – Sit in front of a blank computer screen and add step one and step two, then record what happens. No plotting needed.

• What are you working on now?

September 1st is deadline for my WIP, which has the working title, “Throw Away Heart.” Most of the story happens on a train ride from Omaha to Sacramento in the 1880s. The title sounds more like a romance, which it is, but the editor wants a more western sounding name for their base of Bly fans. So, I’ll brainstorm that while I finish the project.

• What books do you enjoy reading?

In fiction--from Owen Wister to John Steinbeck, Elmer Kelton to William Saroyan, Luke Short to Fyodor Dostoevsky. And, of course, Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey. In nonfiction, I’m meditating again on J. I. Packer’s Knowing God. And I devour most any history book, my favorite subject.

• Where can readers buy your book?

Order Cowboy For A Rainy Afternoon through http://www.amazon.com/ or http://www.blybooks.com/ or through your local bookstore (via Ingram Distributors). Ask for it at your local library too.

• Where can readers find you online?

Our websites: http://www.blybooks.com/ and http://www.onestepovertheborder.com/

Or our “On A Western Trail” blog: http://www.blybooks.blogspot.com/

Click here to read an excerpt from Chapter One of Cowboy for a Rainy Afternoon.

Book Giveaway Drawing: Leave a comment to this post for a chance to win a free copy of Cowboy for a Rainy Afternoon. Be sure and include a way to contact you or your entry will be ineligible. Entries accepted until midnight, Pacific Coast Time/US. The winner will be announced Friday on this blog. Click the link in the side bar to read detailed book giveaway drawing rules.

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