Category: Uncategorized (Page 6 of 10)

Shaping the Story Commentary

June 11, 2019 / John D. Nesbitt / 0 Comments

Shaping the Story is, as the subtitle says, an introduction to writing fiction. It was published by Sundown Press, an imprint of Prairie Rose Publications, in January of 2019. It is a little over 100,000 words all together, with 68,000 in the main text and 36,000 in a short anthology of out-of-copyright stories to illustrate many of the elements and principles discussed in the main text. I hope it is useful to people who want to learn on their own as well as to those who might end up taking a class or workshop with me.

In a Large and Lonesome Land Commentary

June 4, 2019 / John D. Nesbitt / 3 Comments

In a Large and Lonesome Land is a CD of western songs recorded by the great W.C. Jameson. I wrote the lyrics to all the selections on this CD, and WCJ brought them to life as songs. This project evolved over a period of several years and materialized as a CD in November of 2018.

Good Water Commentary

May 28, 2019 / John D. Nesbitt / 0 Comments

Good Water is my twenty-fifth western/frontier novel and my sixth book with Five Star Publishing. I wrote it in the first part of 2015, and it came out in the latter part of 2016. For this novel, I tried a couple of approaches with which I had not done much, and so it took me a while to get the plan ironed out.

Death in Cantera Commentary

May 21, 2019 / John D. Nesbitt / 0 Comments

Death in Cantera is my twenty-fourth western/frontier novel, my fifth book with Five Star, and my second Dunbar story. I wrote it in 2013, and it came out in early 2016. By the time I wrote this novel, I had an established relationship with Five Star, so I could think about writing a story with that publisher in mind. Also, because Dark Prairie had done well with reviews, sales, and an award, and because the people at Five Star liked Dunbar, I had encouragement to write another novel with him as the somewhat mysterious sleuth.

Justice at Redwillow Commentary

May 14, 2019 / John D. Nesbitt / 0 Comments

Justice at Redwillow is my twenty-third western/frontier novel and my fourth with Five Star in its hardcover frontier line. It was published in August of 2015.

I began working on ideas for this story line in 2011, but I struggled quite a bit with some of the elements. I think some of my uncertainties may have come from my status, as this was the period between the time when Dorchester ended its western line and the time when Five Star began its frontier line. As mentioned in other commentaries, I had begun working with an agent, but the various commercial publishing companies were wary of taking on new writers, and some of them had a rather narrow idea of what kinds of stories they wanted. I came to appreciate Dorchester, who, in spite of wanting things to be recognizable traditional westerns, was willing to accept stories that were a bit atypical and varied.

Don’t Be a Stranger Commentary

May 7, 2019 / John D. Nesbitt / 0 Comments

Don’t Be a Stranger is my twenty-second western/frontier novel, published by Five Star Publishing in February of 2015. It was published before Justice at Redwillow, although I wrote them in the opposite order. I wrote them both while things were getting under way with Five Star and its frontier line. During that time, Dark Prairie was going through the acceptance, editing, and production process, and Across the Cheyenne River was making its way onto the list.

Robert Roripaugh Commentary

April 30, 2019 / John D. Nesbitt / 0 Comments

Robert Roripaugh is a booklet in the Boise State University Western Writers Series. This slim volume came out in 2004, and it gives an overview of the career of Robert Roripaugh, who has been a major literary figure in Wyoming for many years.

Across the Cheyenne River Commentary

April 28, 2019 / John D. Nesbitt / 0 Comments

Across the Cheyenne River was my second novel with Five Star Publishing and my twenty-first traditional western. Although that sequence may sound routine, this novel did not make its way into the world without obstacles.

Understanding Fiction Commentary

April 19, 2019 / John D. Nesbitt / 0 Comments

Understanding Fiction is a textbook/manual I have put together for my college classes in introduction to literature and studies in the short story. Like Writing for Real, it evolved out of materials I developed for a distance course. When I first undertook the project, I was presenting a course in short fiction and the novel, and I wrote explanatory sections for stories in an anthology I had ordered and for novels I had selected.

Writing for Real Commentary

April 19, 2019 / John D. Nesbitt / 0 Comments

Writing for Real is a textbook I have composed for my classes in college composition. It first began to take shape many years ago, when I was putting together a manual for a distance course in composition. At that time, I wrote up quite a bit of material that I used to present in lecture or discussion, and I plundered material that I had included in an earlier version of the Blue Book of Basic Writing (ostensibly for a broader audience, at the suggestion of the publisher at the time) but did not use to any appreciable extent and then took out.

Category: Uncategorized (Page 6 of 10)

Shaping the Story Commentary

In a Large and Lonesome Land Commentary

Good Water Commentary

Death in Cantera Commentary

Justice at Redwillow Commentary

Don’t Be a Stranger Commentary

Robert Roripaugh Commentary

Across the Cheyenne River Commentary

Understanding Fiction Commentary

Writing for Real Commentary

John D. Nesbitt

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives

Website

John D. Nesbitt Meta

Blog Archives

Search John D. Nesbitt