A Dispatch from my Author Tour

I’m just back from Colorado and Wyoming, where I had author events at some of the spots where the book actually took place. In Laramie, Wyoming, I read from the book in the actual prison where Watt O’Hugh was locked up (it’s now a museum), and an enthusiastic group braved a terrible snowstorm and made me feel welcome and at home. The snowstorm made the reading feel more realistic, somehow, since, in the book, Watt lived in the prison during the winter of 1875.

The Laramie Boomerang ran a feature article about me and my book. In Leadville, Colorado, where Watt O’Hugh met Oscar Wilde and battled deadlings in the street, I got great coverage in the Democrat-Gazette (which also pointed out a factual error - thanks!) and was very excited to see the local bookstore window filled with copies of Watt O’Hugh. Walking down those streets, in many ways unchanged since the events that the book recounts, was strange and exciting for me. (Of course, walking down those streets at an altitude of 10,000 feet left me worse than winded.)

Most exciting for me was seeing cell #17 at the Laramie prison, which was Watt’s cell in 1875. It made me feel as though Watt O’Hugh weren’t just a fictitious character after all. Of course, he is a fictitious character, but there was something about seeing that cell that made me feel as though Watt had really lived there.

I'll have more thoughts on this soon.