Reavis Z. Wortham – Texas Red River Mysteries

Reavis Z. Wortham’s Red River mysteries have been favorably compared to extraordinary talents like Harper Lee and Elmore Leonard, but he says the most important thing for him is to tell a good story. With his books making Best Mass Market Paperback Awards two years running, Reavis is certainly doing that well. Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler, and on today’s Binge Reading Reavis talks about his passion for preserving stories of small-town mid-20th century Texas before that world is lost forever. We’ve got three copies of the latest Red River mystery, Laying Bones, to give away to three lucky readers. Enter the draw to win. Offer closes August 23. ENTER DRAW TO WIN REAVIS BOOK And a reminder – for as little as a cup of coffee a month, you can get exclusive bonus Binge Reading content by becoming a supporter on Patreon. Find out more at Patreon.com/thejoysofbingereading. Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode: How Reavis combined a fulltime professional career with writing Why 1960s Texas is so nostalgic for him Red River’s key characters series based on real people His list of big name authors he admires The new Tucker Snow series in the works What he sees as the ‘secret of his success’ Where to find Reavis Z Wortham:  Website: http://reaviszwortham.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reavis-Z-Wortham-145640935453067/ Twitter: @ReavisZWortham Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4554817.Reavis_Z_Wortham YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=reavis+wortham What follows is a “near as” transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions. But now, here’s Reavis. Introducing author Reavis Z. Wortham Jenny Wheeler: Hello there Reavis, and welcome to the show. It’s great to have you with us. Reavis Z Wortham: Thank you Jenny. It’s pleasure to be with you guys. It is always a pleasure to talk to folks that have read some of my work, and to be able to discuss the location and the characters and the storylines that I spin for people. Author Reavis Z. Wortham Jenny Wheeler: The Red River series, which is the one we are focusing on mainly today, is popular fiction, but it’s got a definite literary edge. You have been compared to some of the paramount writers of your nation – people like Harper Lee and Elmore Leonard. The critics rave, and yet it is popular fiction. That’s quite a tricky double stool to sit on. How did you manage that, and what do you think about being compared with Harper Lee? Reavis Z Wortham: Oh, Lord. When I first saw that in print, I was stunned. I had no earthly idea that anything I could do would be compared to the quality of what Harper Lee produced back in those days. I never considered what I was doing literary fiction. I was just telling a story. I wanted to tell a story about the area where I grew up, north of Paris, Texas, up on the Red River, and about the people that raised me and the people I knew. I wrote about them the best way I knew how. Truthfully, I probably learned from reading Harper Lee. I probably learned from Elmore Leonard. I probably learned from James Lee Burke. Writers read, and I’ve been a voracious reader ever since I was in kindergarten, so I have absorbed a lot of fine writing. I think that had a lot to do with my style and what I produced. ‘All I want to do is tell a story’ There was another author by the name of Donald E. Westlake. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of him in New Zealand. He was a fine writer, a crime writer, and funny and quirky. About two or three years ago, a reviewer said that my third novel reminded him so much of Donald E. Westlake’s The Busy Body and The Fugitive Pigeon. When you are mentioned in the same sentence as all of those fine writers, it’s very humbling. But I try not to let anything get in the way. I don’t like to let it get inside my head, because all I want to do is tell a story and entertain people. Jenny Wheeler: You have four books in your second series, the Sonny Hawke series. It is another Texas story, a Texas Ranger patrolling the Borderlands. That series won Best Mass Market Paperback novel for both 2019 and 2020. You remain faithful to the Texas setting, but you certainly know how to tell a good Texas story. Tell us a bit more about the Texas you know. Reavis Z Wortham: I was born a fourth generation Texan. I was born in this state. This is my state, and these are the people I grew up with. I love everything about Texas. We are so unique. Some people say we stand alone, and we kind of feel like we do. Red River series tells Texas stories The Rock Hole #1 in the Red River series by Reavis Z. Wortham. “An unpretentious gem” Texas came into the Union in a completely different way than the other states, and so we have a sense of pride that impacts the things we do and the things that we say and write. I am telling stories about all of Texas, not just small parts. We spoke earlier about how people think Texas is desert – like Monument Valley or John Wayne country. But it’s not. Texas is varied. I had been writing the Red River series since 2011, starting with The Rock Hole, my first novel. After about five or six books, my agent said, I want you to start writing something a little different. Would you consider writing thrillers? I told her I would try. I wanted to set it somewhere different, down on the rugged Big Bend country of Texas. Some of it is still untouched in many ways. It’s still rough. It’s desert country and mountainous, still dangerous. Everything out there will stick or sting or cut you one way or the other if you’re away from the towns. I wanted to bring all that to life with Sonny Hawke, and what better major protagonist could you come up with other than a Texas Ranger? He is a lot like the old Rangers of the 1800s but at the same time, he has his human quirks too. He is very impetuous. He will get himself into trouble in situations that, if he would sit and think about it for a little while, he wouldn’t get into. But it gives us that sense of adventure, and that thriller sense. Sonny Hawke – a Western thriller Sonny Hawke series – a Western thriller from Reavis Z. Wortham When I turned that first book into them, Hawke’s Prey, my agent said, this is a thriller like I have never read before. This is a Western thriller. All of a sudden I realize I’m writing contemporary Western thrillers on top of everything else. Jenny Wheeler: Funnily enough, your Red River series, even though it is set in the 1960s, is considered historic now, isn’t it? Reavis Z Wortham: Isn’t that funny? I am 67 years old. I grew up in that era that people are looking back to and saying, that’s history from a long time ago. But it is still here. I remember it very well, and I wanted to bring those people in our old-fashioned way of thinking and talking into these novels to preserve it. Texas is changing, as we speak. There is a huge influx of people moving into the State. Our small towns are not the same small towns I grew up with. We are even losing our sense of language, like our old timey language. Words or phrases that my grandparents used are going to be gone someday, and so I include those in the novels also, as well as the way of life that they lived in the mid-sixties. They weren’t completely out of the Depression at that point. These folks survived the Great Depression here in the States, they had gone to war during World War II. Many men and women went over there, and then Korea claimed even more people. I think it slowed down the growth in my region, the Northeast Texas region, up until the seventies, when it finally started to catch up. Ned Parker and John Washington – an important pairing I lived between two generations, and it was a perfect time for me to see how the old folks lived, and how I grew up. Of course, I call them the old folks. They were younger than I am now, but that’s how I look at them. Jenny Wheeler: Sure. The series, as you’ve mentioned, began with The Rock Hole in 2011. At that stage, your hero, Ned Parker, or your central character – he is a hero as well – is a farmer and a part-time sheriff who is dealing with domestic disputes and moonshine. It’s a very quiet little country area. When he is faced with a murder, he pairs up with a famous black sheriff from a neighboring county, John Washington. The year is 1964. Would that have really happened in Texas at that time – that a white and black sheriff would work together? Reavis Z Wortham: Isn’t it interesting that you say that. It would. Let me correct you a little bit. Ned Parker is a constable, he’s not a sheriff, and John Washington is a deputy sheriff in nearby Chisholm, Texas. It happened and I know it happened, and I know it could have happened, because my granddad was Ned Parker, and I knew John Washington. His real name was Leroy Sipes, and they worked together on a number of occasions on crimes that had occurred in that rural area. My granddad was a farmer, but constables at that time were elected officials. They were an outreach of the Sheriff’s Department in Paris, Texas, or what I call Chisholm today. Mr Leroy Sipes – the real man behind the story My granddad worked for the Sheriff’s Department. He took care of drunks, he settled family disputes. He did it all on his own, but sometimes you can’t do those things on your own. They’re too dangerous, and you need someone to go with you. At that time, there was some division between the races. When my granddad would need to go to certain areas, he would call John Washington. As I heard Mr Leroy Sipes say, his job was to take care of his people. That’s who he dealt with. He was as big as I make out to be in the novels. He was a giant of a man. I tell everyone to think of John Coffey in The Green Mile. Mr Leroy was about that size. He was a huge man. I used them as the basis of my characters, and I used a lot of what I saw. The Rock Hole happened. Not to the extent that the murderer was dealt with as I did, in the novel. I don’t want to give any spoilers, but it is something that happened. It’s a crime my granddad investigated when I was 10 years old. That went on for well over a year until it fell off of my radar as a child. I didn’t think about it until I was grown. He was retired and we were sitting on the porch of his farmhouse. His farm was situated so close to the Red River that I could see where the land dipped down toward the river. I could see the lights of a town in Oklahoma. Well son, sometimes folks just need killing He and I were sitting on his porch, watching the cattle out in the pasture, and I remembered all the events that happened. I asked him, did you ever catch this guy? My granddad looked at me with these cold ice blue eyes that he had, and he looked away and looked back at me again. He said, well, son, sometimes some folks just need killing. That’s all he would tell me. With that sentence I thought, what really happened? What happened up on that river in this rural area, which was inhabited by men who had survived World War II, men who survived Korea, and the men and women whose lives were impacted by someone who was what we know today as a budding serial killer. I couldn’t wrap my head around what they could have done or were capable of doing, and so I took an idea and I folded it into the manuscript and that became The Rock Hole. Jenny Wheeler: That leads me to think that you might use nubs of real things for a number of your books. In Laying Bones, the latest one that we’re talking about, number eight in the series, there is a little technicality about the way some land has been left. The rivers change course, and these illegal honky-tonks are operating in a bit of a no man’s land, which is beyond the jurisdiction of two different states or counties. That was something that really happened, wasn’t it? What if the Red River moved states? Reavis Z Wortham: It did, and it’s still happening today. Not with the honky-tonks and the illegalities that came with it. But the Red River is a massive river, and even though there is a dam about 90 miles upstream, it floods easily. In fact, it flooded this year. I have seen it flood more than a dozen times since I was a kid. When it gets out of its banks, it does what it wants. It is a truly powerful river. On occasion, it will squirm and coil and change direction, and move north or south leaving bits of Oklahoma or Texas on the wrong side of the river. If you look at a map you will see that technically there is a line that goes down through the middle of the river. Oklahoma is north, Texas is south and never the twain shall meet. But when the river moves and changes course, it can go as far as a half mile or a mile north or south, leaving a split of land. The landowners just have to deal with it. If that is your land and you’re in Texas and it comes south, you may have the half mile that you own in Oklahoma. You are still responsible for it, but it’s not in your state. A few times there have been some disputes over who owned a certain piece of land. When I was thinking about writing Laying Bones, I had an idea in my mind. I’d heard the river had moved in a couple of places, so I went to satellite maps on Google, and I looked down. I found some pieces of land that belonged to Oklahoma, but they were in Texas. Texas honky-tonks were tough places way back when Then, like all writers do, I thought, what if? What if someone on the Texas owned that land but didn’t care about it at all? What if he turned a blind eye and received a pocket full of cash while people built a gambling honkey-tonk on that land? There is no road. Oklahoma can’t oversee it. Texas can, but they are dirt roads, and you have to go through pastures and fences. Texas says, that’s not ours. Oklahoma says, that’s not ours, and the bad guys build this gambling den selling alcohol. I don’t know what you guys know about Texas honky-tonks back then. They were rough. They were places with sawdust on the floor to soak up the blood. That is what my granddad told me it was for. I knew about it because I had an uncle that owned one. I would go over there and sneak in on occasion when I was a kid, and I wanted to fold those experiences into the manuscript that eventually became Laying Bones. Jenny Wheeler: The Sonny Hawke series reached four books, but you’ve said that’s the last Sonny Hawke there’s going to be. I wondered what the difference is for you in a series that feels like it’s come to a natural conclusion, and one like Red River that seems to roll on and on like the old Mississippi. Reavis Z Wortham: The Sonny Hawke books have ended for right now. I don’t know if they came to a natural conclusion, but that contract is over. There will be more. Sonny Hawke is not dead. He’s going to come back in about a year in a short story. I have already sold that one, so he’s going to be around. Never Miss out! Never miss out on the hottest new authors, regular FREE BOOK OFFERS and Most Popular podcasts. Yes please to FREE BOOKS and updates on popular books We won’t send you spam. 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100%;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] [data-style="minimal"]{padding:40px;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"]{margin-left:-5px;margin-right:-5px;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"] .formkit-field,.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"] .formkit-submit{margin:0 5px 15px 5px;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"] .formkit-field{-webkit-flex:100 1 auto;-ms-flex:100 1 auto;flex:100 1 auto;}.formkit-form[data-uid="d471e51619"][min-width~="600"] .formkit-fields[data-stacked="false"] .formkit-submit{-webkit-flex:1 1 auto;-ms-flex:1 1 auto;flex:1 1 auto;} And then – a claustrophobic horror novel You never know when you start a series. I didn’t even consider writing series when I wrote my first novel. I intended to sell it as a standalone. At the time, Poisoned Pen Press said, we like this, and we like the character so much that we want to give you a contract for a series. That is how I launched on doing that, and that’s an open-ended contract. We’ve talked several times over it. I am not required to write one per year, but that is what I’m doing. I write the novels and turn them in. I see those characters continuing on probably into the seventies. I made a little mistake when I first started. I was green as grass. I didn’t know anything about writing. After I wrote The Rock Hole I came back to write the second novel, which is Burrows. People either love Burrows or they hate it. It is one of the most claustrophobic horror novels you’ve ever read that wrapped up into the Red River series. I dated Burrows one year after The Rock Hole. Well, I lost that entire year, those experiences that the children in The Rock Hole could have experienced. The third novel, The Right Side of Wrong, was another year after that. What I’m finding out was I was writing myself out of the entire series way faster than I wanted to. As I got into the later books, Unraveled, Gold Dust and Laying Bones, I have been compressing the time. They are taking place within months, if not weeks of each other, because the seventies were completely different decade. Tom Bell became a most favorite character The Right Side of Wrong – where Tom Bell makes an appearance in the Red River series by Reavis Z. Wortham I remember bits and pieces of the seventies. There was a lot going on for a young man back in those days, and I realized that might lose the flavor, and also the kids are going to get too old, too quickly. Because of that, I’ve compressed the time. I’ll probably continue to compress it. It may go to the mid-seventies before it runs to a natural conclusion. What I’ve done also is I created a character in the third book, The Right Side of Wrong, named Tom Bell. He is an older retired Texas Ranger, and he moves into Center Springs and meets the kids in The Rock Hole – Ned and Miss Becky and John Washington. He becomes a fixture for that novel. At the end of the novel, I thought that character had run his course. I left him dying after a gunfight in Mexico and continued on with The Right Side of Wrong. Then I came back and wrote Vengeance is Mine. Every time I would go to a signing or a talk, people would say, why did you kill Tom Bell off? He was one of our favorite characters. I realized I’d made a dramatic mistake by getting rid of him, so I went back and re-read the end of the novel. When I did, I realized I didn’t kill Tom Bell. All I did was left him seriously wounded. So, I resurrected him for the next novel, and he has been with us ever since. How Reavis Z. Wortham came about his unusual name The great thing is, not too long ago I wrote and turned in my newest novel, which is going to come out in February of next year. It’s called The Texas Job, and it is Tom Bell as a young Texas Ranger. It’s a prequel, in 1931 East Texas, during the oil boom of that time. It was a snapshot of history. It was rough, it was violent, but it was the growth of the oil industry and the gas industry. I set that novel there, so now we can see Tom Bell as a young man. Instead of pushing on into the seventies with everyone else right now, I’m looking back at where we all came from. Jenny Wheeler: Reavis is an unusual name, and I wouldn’t comment on it, except that on your website you’ve mentioned that there are four authors who have all taken up that name and given it in slightly different forms in the books they’ve written. It makes sense to ask you a bit about those writers and also where the name came from. Reavis Z Wortham: It is a very unusual name that that I don’t run across very often, and if I do, it’s usually pronounced differently. My mom pronounced it Reavis which rhymes with a crevice. That is best way to describe it. But it’s a unique enough name that people notice it, especially when my middle name is Zane. I was named after Zane Grey, and so the two of those will capture people’s attention. Author friends who put Reavis in their books The guys who have put me in their novels have done so partially because we’re very good friends, but partially because of the unique name itself. Thanks for them mentioning it – a brief mention in some of them or a brief character. Thanks for doing that. Doing one of the most unpardonable sins I’ve heard that I could do, I’m leading people away from my website by linking their books on my site. I think it’s fun. I’m not in competition with anyone. I want everyone to discover our books. CJ Box is one of them, John Gilstrap is one who has done that. You read their names on there, if you haven’t discovered those guys. If those guys did that for me and mentioned it, then I wanted to pay them back somewhere and maybe gain a few fans for them. Because of that, I led people away from my website, but I do want them to come back and look at it because we have a lot of fun. There is a lot of information, photos, and comments and old timey words that we talked about earlier, the language that we’re losing in the rural communities. That is all listed on the website. Jenny Wheeler: Fantastic. Moving away from the specific books to talking about your life as a writer, how did you become a full-time writer, and what did you do before you started The Rock Hole? What was your job or your journey? How Reavis Z. Wortham got started in his writing Reavis Z Wortham: I always wanted to write from the time I was a kid. I tried for years and years. When I was in Junior High I was submitting to Readers Digest. I will go into the whole story because it’s funny, but it’s very long. A friend of mine introduced me to Playboy magazine when I was in Junior High. I had seen that on the racks. I’d never opened one, though God knows I wanted to. His dad had one, and my friend said, they pay $2,000 for an article in Playboy magazine. This was in 1968 or 69. When he told me that, we looked and I found on the masthead where to mail in submissions. I began a two-year correspondence with Playboy magazine, trying to get them to publish my short stories, which were atrocious, I’m sure, but I gave it my best shot. Finally, one of the best pieces of advice I ever got from anyone was one of the editors at Playboy magazine. He wrote me a personal note and said, your submission does not meet our needs at this time. Thank you for submitting this material. That was the mimeographed part. The second part was a note that he jotted down, and he said, you need to learn how to type, kid. With that I took typing in high school and tried even harder and harder. I didn’t get anywhere until 1988. I was an administrator in the Garland Independent School district at the time. That’s where I retired from after 35 years in public education. I retired as the Director of Communications and Crisis Manager for the Garland ISD. Creating a self-syndicated newspaper column I was in one of those meetings we have all been in, if you’ve ever been in the business world. You don’t really need to be there because we are talking about something that does not impact you, but by God, you’re going to have your butt on the seat so I can look at you and make sure you’re earning your keep. I penned a quick newspaper column. I had been reading a number of authors and I’d still been trying to write. I’d been reading the aforementioned Donald Westlake. I’d also been reading a novel by a guy named Robert Ruark. I never met him. He died in 1964, but he has been one of my mentors through his writing. I was also reading Patrick McManus – one of the funniest writers you’ve ever read. He wrote outdoor humor. I was reading those three and they clicked in the back of my mind as one writer. That is where I found my voice. I wrote a newspaper column, sent it to the Paris News, which is where my grandparents were, and my family is from. They picked me up based on that one newspaper column as their outdoor humor columnist for the Paris News. I’m still writing for them 33 years later. I expanded that out into a self-syndicated newspaper column. I was on more than 50 newspapers, doing it on my own, when I got a phone call from King Features Syndicate here in the States. They said they were going to make me the outdoor Dave Barry. I was going to be that columnist. One of these days I’ll die on this old river, grandmother said All of that collapsed because of the internet and then newspapers began to fall by the wayside, so I have had to find something else to do. I wound up writing magazine articles. To date, I have about 2000 magazine newspaper columns with my byline on them. But I still wasn’t getting where I wanted. I loved that kind of writing, but I wanted to write a novel. One day I came home from work, sat down, couldn’t think of a thing to write. I have never had writer’s block, but I had a deadline for the newspaper article and couldn’t think of anything. I looked over at the shelves and saw my grandmother’s picture sitting there. My grandmother would always tell me, I’m from up on the river, meaning the Red River, and one of these days I’ll die up here on this old river. And she did, when she was in her late eighties. When I remembered those lines, I typed them down on my computer, and I liked them so much that they led to the story which became the first chapter for The Rock Hole. I pounded that novel out over a period of two or three years, learning how to write. It was 140,000 words when I was finished with the first draft. I can see you’re frightened. You’re stunned. It was twice the length of a typical novel, but I had a good editor who taught me what to cut out. I cut 50,000 words out of that manuscript and then The Rock Hole was published right after that in 2011. Never Miss out! Never miss out on the hottest new authors, regular FREE BOOK OFFERS and Most Popular podcasts. Yes please to FREE BOOKS and updates on popular books We won’t send you spam. 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Wortham – moving from one career to the next At the same time, I retired after 35 years of public education. I moved from one career directly into this one and I’m having a ball doing this. It’s great fun. Jenny Wheeler: So, all of that time you were doing the magazine articles, you also had a full-time job. Reavis Z Wortham: I did. I was a public information officer for the school district, a photographer for the school district, and at the same time as I was a crisis manager. If anything happened, I was the guy who dealt with the media and the police department and the fire department. There was a lot going on, and still is, in huge suburban school districts. We had 56,000 kids and 7,500 employees, so something is always going on. For example, I was in the forefront of dealing with all of these people’s safety when 9/11 occurred in 2001. That’s the kind of job I did. We shut the schools down. We worked with the police department to maintain security of everyone. We were in touch with every other school district in the area and many around the nation. We would work together to get the correct information to parents, to alleviate their fears, to come get their children if they wanted to, and to maintain the safety of our students and staff. I would do that during the day, or deal with the media when something happened, or be on camera. In the evenings I needed to unwind, and the best way to unwind was to write fiction. That is where I learned to do it. I’m still unwinding today. I still love to sit and write and make up stories and follow these characters as they go through their lives on the page. What has contributed to Reavis Z. Wortham’s success On Writing – Stephen King – a Reavis Z. Wortham favorite writing memoir I have had more than one person tell me that the characters have become family to them. They look forward to the next book so that they can see what’s happened within the past year. It’s like a family reunion. Jenny Wheeler: A perennial question I always like to ask is, if there was one thing you did that helped you become a success as a writer, what was it? Reavis Z Wortham: It’s a combination of things, but the one thing that made me become a success is I read a small book by a huge writer, and the writer’s name is Stephen King. He wrote a book called On Writing – his journey writing and how he wrote. I had been struggling for decades, not knowing what I was doing. I read his book, and at the back of the book he had an example of pages that he had written and was editing. I realized then that Stephen King edited like anyone else. He put it down and then came back and cleaned it up. Not long after that, another very well-known author published a similar book, but it was different in so many ways that it stood alone. It was called Lessons From a Lifetime of Writing named David Morrell, who is now a friend of mine. If you don’t recognize his name, you will recognize the character he created back in 1972, and that character was Rambo. I read David’s book on writing and those two books helped me more than anything. I saw truly how writers write. I still refer to them on occasion, but after I put those two books on the shelf I sat down and really started writing the manuscript. Put your rear in a chair, turn off social media, and write John Gilstrap – Stealth Attack – a kidnapping thriller But there are several things involved. The other thing is to put your rear in a chair and actually write. People talk about writing. A lot of people come to me and say, I’m going to write something. I’m going to write someday. When I retire, I’m going to be an author. When my kids are grown, I’m going to be an author. The truth of the matter is you’re talking about it, not writing. If you want to be a writer, put your rear in a chair, open a laptop up, put Facebook and Twitter and Instagram down and write. That’s what I do every day. Jenny Wheeler: You have mentioned already a lot of your favorite authors, so there is probably not a lot to add, but we do call this The Joys of Binge Reading, so maybe you could give us an idea of what you really like and enjoy at the moment. Reavis Z Wortham: I’m across the board. I love reading biographies, I love reading history. I will find biographies and history and just absorb them. I have authors I know that I love. I have authors I don’t know that I love. I’m a collector of Stephen King’s works. I love his stuff. I have all first additions on my shelf that he has produced other than his first one, Carrie, and that’s because there were only 2,500 of those that came out. Stephen King has been a huge influence. David Morrell is a good friend, but I read his books as soon as they hit the stands. What Reavis Z. Wortham is reading now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axBe1-DBoNo Joe R. Lansdale and his Hap and Leonard series is one of Reavis Z. Wortham’s most admired authors. One of my best friends in the world, and I just love this guy, is a writer I met in 2011, when I went to my first writers’ conference, trying to learn the business. He walked past three times and he stopped. He looked at me and said, you realize you’re just sitting in front of an empty bar right now. It’s closed. We were in a hotel, and I said, yeah, but it’s going to open and when it opens, I’m going to have a gin and tonic. He said, I’ll be back. He sat down next to me, and we became fast friends. We’re brothers from another mother, and his name is John Gilstrap.  John lives in Alexandria, Virginia. I’m in Texas, but we are what we call running buddies down here. Anytime we can get together, we’re doing things. Our families have gotten so close that we vacation together. John writes the Jonathan Grave series which is absolutely fantastic. He has started another series now, a post-apocalyptic series that’s going great guns. His newest novel is Stealth Attack. It’s out and I’m reading it. There are so many great writers that are friends of mine. Sandra Brannan, who lives in South Dakota, is a wonderful author. I wish she would devote more time to her writing. She comes from a mining family, and she runs a mining company. She knows more about explosives than you would believe. She is also sitting on the Board up there with the Crazy Horse monument that’s being constructed right next to Mount Rushmore. Sandra is a great writer. Jeffrey Deaver – CJ Box – Craig Johnson – Joe R Lansdale . . and more Sandra Brannan – Jeremiah’s Revenge one of Reavis Z. Wortham’s favorite authors. Good friend Jeffery Deaver writes good stuff. CJ Box has helped me a lot. He promotes me. Craig Johnson, who writes the Longmire series, he helps promote me. I have a very close friend in East Texas called Joe R Lansdale. He wrote a novel entitled Cold in July that they filmed a few years ago, which is one of the best novels about Texas I’ve ever seen. Craig Johnson on The Joys of Binge Reading with his beloved Longmire here. Joe is all over the page. He writes whatever he feels like writing. You might be reading about a drive-in theater that is suddenly sucked out of this universe and slammed down into the prehistoric era, surrounded by dinosaurs, or he’s writing about depression era in East Texas. Everything he writes is just wonderful. The listeners can’t see it but I wish they could, because I’m going to give you an example of what my library looks like. These are the people I read. The shelves go up to a 14-foot ceiling, and they wrap around this entire office. I read all the time. I gave you a few that come to mind right now, but I hope it doesn’t lessen my friends that might hear this, that I didn’t mention their name. I read people that are no longer with us. I like older books – Ross MacDonald, Donald Westlake, Robert B. Parker. There are so many out there that I learn from as I’m reading. You and I were talking before we came on – writers write but writers read, and you have to read because that’s what stimulates the brain and helps you become a better writer. And so, I read voraciously. What’s next for Reavis Z. Wortham as writer? Jenny Wheeler: That’s fantastic. What is next for you as a writer? What are you working on over the next 12 months? What can we expect to see? Joe R Lansdale – Hap and Leonard novel Vanilla Ride Reavis Z Wortham: I just signed a new contract for an entirely new series, featuring a character named Tucker Snow, based in Texas, of course. Texas is all I’m going to write about. Tucker Snow is a stock agent and here in the States, stock agents or stock inspectors – they go by both names – are part of the Texas Rangers. They deal with ranch and farm crimes, and so they make sure cattle are happy. If someone has cattle stolen – stock inspector. If your tractor is stolen – stock inspector. If your ranch house is broken into, you call the stock inspector. We are going to follow Tucker Snow for at least two to three books, we hope. I got a two-book contract, but I think it’s going to stretch out. We are going to see a Tucker do a couple of things. He’s going to preserve the safety of the people in his region, which stretches from Texas into Oklahoma. He has the authority to go into Oklahoma to investigate and make arrests. We are also going to see his family that has been devastated through meth. His wife and daughter were killed by someone who was on meth. As I’ve been investigating this and talking to people, I’m learning that the meth problem is huge in certain areas of the state, and Tucker is going to be dealing with it in addition to dealing with the rural crops that he also deals with. Tucker Snow will be the new series As I said, I have one coming out called The Texas Job. That one is coming out in February. The first Tucker Snow will come out the next year in late 2023, early 2024. The one after that comes out in 2025. That is in addition to the others that I’m working on. I have written a horror Western that is full of humor. Some might call it Western science fiction, Western science fiction humor. It’s quirky. It’s funny. I’m hoping to get that placed here at some point. I’m also working on two or three other manuscripts as we speak. I have several under construction, the same as I have several books I’m reading at any one time. There is a lot going on in my life. Plus chasing grandkids around here and being a grandpa. Jenny Wheeler: You write several books at one time? You can move from one to the other. Reavis Z Wortham: I do. People say, how can you do that, because they think you have to concentrate on one or you might lose your place. But I tell everyone, you have your favorite TV programs. You pick them up from week to week, you know what’s happening, you know the characters. That’s what happens with me. I will work on several at one time until one gets hold of me and takes the reins. Then I finish that one before I go back to the others. Where you can find Reavis Z. Wortham online The Tucker Snow I’m working on is not due until March 23rd, but I plan to have it done within the next month or month and a half. I reached the midway part yesterday, 40,000 words, so now I’m on the downhill slide for that one. When I hit that point in my novels, they write themselves and they write fast, because now you’re heading for the climax, which is what we all want. The first third of the novel gets your characters established, the second sets the stage, and then the third is the climax. I’m getting to that part right now, and that’s a lot of fun for me. So, that one has got a hold of me. That’s what I’m going to work on until I get it in the can, send it to my agent, and then I will go back to the other manuscripts I’m looking at, and see which one I pick up. Jenny Wheeler: That’s fantastic. We have run out of time together, so tell me, do you enjoy hearing from your readers, and do you talk to them online? Reavis Z Wortham: I do. I love hearing from readers. If anyone wants to send me an email, they can send it through my web page, www.reaviszwortham.com or www.reaviswortham.com. Either one. I own both domains. You can link over and send me an email. I love talking to people about my books and the writing process. What Reavis Z Worthams fans like about Ned Parker and co At the same time, I have two Facebook pages. One is more of a personal page, but that’s the one we have a lot of fun on. I have almost 5,000 followers on that page, and so it gets most of the activity. I also have an author’s page that I post on at the same time, so people can reach out to me through them, and through Messenger. I travel the State. COVID is releasing its hold on us, and I hope to be again traveling the country and going out to talk to folks. I make presentations all the time. I attend writers’ conferences to be on panels, to meet other writers and to meet fans too. If I’m ever out, I love for fans to come sit down and talk to me, because I want to see what I’m doing that is impacting them. Why do they like Ned Parker and the Red River books? Why do they like Sonny Hawke and the Texas Ranger books? What did they like or dislike? I am thick-skinned. I love to find out why people get irritated with me. I have a character in my Red River books called named Pepper. When you first start reading her in The Rock Hole, she is 10 years old. She’s precocious, she’s mouthy, she’s foul mouthed. She is a character who really spices things up, and she plays off Top Parker who a nice, quiet little kid. He is also 10 years old. They are almost twin cousins. Pepper has developed a following, as has Top. Tell Reavis what you like – and don’t like I got an email from a lady one time that said, I love your series, I love your characters, and she listed those she especially liked. But she said, I cannot wait until the day you drown Pepper in the Red River. I’m tired of her. I thought that was funny. Somewhere with someone, I’m striking a nerve, and that’s what I want to do. I want to entertain, and I think that’s what the books do. Jenny Wheeler: That’s wonderful, Reavis. I can certainly see that you do entertain. Thank you so much for your time. Reavis Z Wortham: It has been a pleasure, Jenny. Thanks for reaching out. I’m excited that folks down in your part of the world have discovered my books. I get a lot of emails from Australia, from people who have discovered the novels down there, and I always look forward to talking to you all in Australia, New Zealand, and anywhere in the world. Reach out to me and I’ll talk. I appreciate it if people will read my books because that’s what I want to do. I want to entertain. If you enjoyed Reavis Wortham’s Texas Red River series you might also enjoy Craig Johnson’s Longmire series LISTEN TO CRAIG HERE Thanks To Our Technical Support: The Joys of Binge Reading podcast is put together with wonderful technical help from Dan Cotton at DC Audio Services. Dan is an experienced sound and video engineer who’s ready and available to help you with your next project… Seek him out at [email protected] or Phone + 64 – 21979539. He’s fast, takes pride in getting it right, and lovely to work with. Our voice overs are done by Abe Raffills, and Abe’s another gem. He got 20 years of experience on both sides of the camera/microphone as a cameraman/director and also voice artist and television presenter. Abe’s vocal delivery is both light hearted and warm and he is super easy to work with no matter the job. You’ll find him at [email protected]