A summit of words and wit

Whether writing stories for money, love or entertainment, the six professional writers that sat at a small table in the Grand Encampment Museum on June 28 all shared one common thread, the Rocky Mountains. Some had been in the North Platte Valley their entire lives, while others visited and fell in love with the history and legends that echo across the mountains and valleys from days gone by. While every author has a slightly different motive for writing, they all seem to be compelled to tell us stories, with a burning desire to share with the world.

New York Times best selling author, C. J. Box said, "I remember when I was a kid in Casper, I would ride by bicycle to the library and go down the stacks, looking for the spot where my book would be someday."

Box said he believes writers are hardwired to write. Whether successful or not, a writer has to write. His first book, "Open Season", went to the top of the bestseller's list after it was published, but it took 20 years to get it there. He finished it, sent it to an agent in New York and didn't hear anything for four years. Box attended a Writer's conference in Denver and learned that his so called agent was dead. Thankfully, another agent read his manuscript and thought it was worth publishing. Box said he's always drawn ideas from the Valley and was fortunate to be able to live in the area and listen to the stories and experiences of the local population. Box said he just finished his 24th Joe Picket novel the day before.

Tim Nicklas asked Box if he wrote Open Season because he believed that it would lead to what it has today.

Box said, "I grew up in Wyoming, reading books about Wyoming, written by Wyoming writers. At the time, I don't think there were any commercially published books." Box said he picked subjects that he found very interesting, kind of new west stories and waited to see where it would go.

Candy Moulton, is an award winning writer as well as being involved in some very important filmmaking projects. She was born and raised in the North Platte Valley just east of Encampment, Wyoming, at Beaver Creek. Moulton's career as a writer began when she was in high school and wrote a column every week for the Saratoga Sun. After she graduated, Moulton came back to Saratoga and became the editor of the Sun, working with authors like C.J. Box, who also worked at the Saratoga Sun. The majority of Moulton's books are non-fiction historical accounts.

"Stories are about people and what happens to them, but the place where it happened shapes everything in the story, especially in the West."

Moulton said one has to think down to "the color of the story". Her first book idea was brought to her by her mother-in-law, Flossie Moulton. :Steamboat, Legendary Bucking Horse", was published in 1992, followed by fourteen Western history books in the past thirty years. She just recently completed "Sacajewea, mystery, myth and legend". In this biography, Moulton finds the tiny details that are revealed in journals and letters written by the leaders of the Corps of Discovery.

Moulton said this was a true challenge because Sacajewea never wrote a single word. There are no records of when or where she was born, where she lived or died, and everything written about her was written by men. Moulton says that her stories are grassroots history. She likes telling stories, like Sharon O'Toole, that nobody else is going to tell. She said you're never going to get rich like Chuck did, but it preserves the history. Moulton said the research is the best part of writing a book, the actual writing is the hardest part. Moulton said her motivation has always been the history.

She said, jokingly, "I knew there wasn't any money in it, I learned that from Dick Perue."

Lynda Johnson published her first book, "Threads of Adventure!" in 2022. Johnson said she had never thought about writing a book until the museum was given some journals written by a young woman named Hettie Parker Kyner. The journals documented Kyner's journey from Maryland to Wyoming. An independent woman that traveled alone after her parents died, and even after marrying, she ventured across the United States with her husband. As Johnson read through the diaries and accessioned the materials that had been donated by Kyner's granddaughter, she was struck by the similarities between herself and Hettie Parker Kyner. She soon realized that it was her destiny to write a book about this amazing woman that she felt was her "soul" sister. Johnson consulted with Nancy Anderson, a local historian, and credits Donna Coulson with helping her self publish her book. The book is dedicated to Hettie Parker Kyner, "whose story spoke tome and begged to be told, and to her granddaughter, Susanna Yatman for donating the diaries and letters, and many other numerous items to the Grand Encampment Museum, including Kyner's stuffed dog.

"Mountain Time", a novel written by Donna Coulson was conceived in the Sierra Madre mountains when Coulson and her dad came across an old cabin in the woods. The area is steeped in the history of the copper mining that took place near Encampment, Wyoming in the early 1900s. Coulson was an adolescent at the time, but her imagination was energized by the debris they found on the ground. Coulson wondered what would make a woman in the early 1900s leave a cabin and not take her china and other kitchen items.

Coulson and her dad spent many summers camping, hunting and fishing, and exploring the mountains. She jokes that being the youngest of three girls, she's "the best son her dad ever had."

Coulson said that she always believed she was called to be teacher. She taught kids to write from Kindergarten to College. She said that when she got to meet Lee Roddy. Coulson said he became a mentor for her. Coulson said it's never been about making a name for herself or making lots of money. She hopes to challenge someone and give the reader a little bit of information and history. Coulson said she spends hours looking things up, researching simple things to make sure her story is historically accurate.

It took her about 11 years to complete her first book. She said that now that she's retired it's much easier to write. She has written 7 books, all of which, in some part, take place in the Encampment, Wyoming area.

The Ladder Ranch sits in a remote area on the outskirts of Savery, Wyoming at the confluence of the Little Snake River and Battle Creek. Sharon O'Toole and her husband, Pat, along with family members have been running livestock for six generations on this land. O'Toole's great-grandfather, A.W. Salisbury came to the area in 1881 and homesteaded. O'Toole, a writer of prose and poetry, decided to write children's books when her kids were little because she felt she could do better. She also writes for Shepherd magazine. Her book Earthbound is a book of poetry based on her life in the Little Snake River Valley. She also wrote an "ABC" book about the Little Snake River Valley, called An Alphabet of Place, which brings to life historical characters and the local landscape as well as the history of the Valley.