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Jean Henry-Mead
began her writing career in 1968 as a news reporter and photographer in central California while serving as her college newspaper's editor-in-chief. She later worked as staff writer-editor-photographer in San Diego, and news reporter in Casper, Wyoming. She also served as editor of In Wyoming magazine.

Mead's freelance articles have appeared in national publications as well as magazines in Norway and West Germany, which have won more than twenty state, regional and national writing awards. Her six books include three volumes of interviews: Maverick Writers, Wyoming in Profile and The Westerners; Casper Country, a centennial history of central Wyoming; and two novels: Escape on the Wind (featuring the Wild Bunch), and Shirl Lock & Holmes (first in a mystery series). She's currently working on her third novel, a Wyoming historical. Founder of the Western Writers Hall of Fame, she's a 23-year member of Western Writers of America (WWA) and former secretary-treasurer; sustaining member of Women Writing the West (WWW), past president of Wyoming Writers, Inc.(WWI), and owner/moderator of the Western Writers Forum on Yahoogroups.com.

Maverick Writers' 271 pages are packed with humor, photos, writing advice and biographies. Authors profiled include: A. B. Guthrie, Jr., Louis L'Amour, Will Henry, Elmer Kelton, Dee Brown, Loren D. Estleman, Peggy Simson Curry, Don Coldsmith, Stephen and Wayne D. Overholser, Don Worcester, Janet Dailey, Matt Braun, Gordon Shirreffs, Lucia St. Clair Robson, Elmore Leonard, J.T. Edson, Benjamin Capps, Jeanne Williams, Douglas Capps and other legends of Western Literature.

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Will Henry is also included in The Westerners, a new collection of Mead's favorite interviews among hundreds conducted over twenty years. Other notables in the book are Vice President Dick Cheney, singer Chris LeDoux, attorney Gerry Spence, sportscaster Curt Gowdy, Marlboro Man, Darrel Winfield; aviatrix and Amelia Earhart friend, Lucile Wright; 96-year-old former cowgirl Beth McElfresh, 91-year-old former cowboy Maynard Lehman,
and a host of others.

Signed copies are only $14.95.

Click to visit Jean Henry-Mead's Website

A pioneer of Western historical romance novels, Jeanne Williams wrote her first in 1956, when no one was buying. It wasnt until twenty years later, after Marilyn Durhams Man Who Loved Cat Dancing and Rosemary Rogers Western settings had plowed a rich new field for women writers, that she sold her first Western novel.

The Saddleman winner and former Western Writers of America (WWA) president says, The first book I wrote was turned down as being too Western to be historical, and too historical to be Westernunpublishable in any case because it was told from a womans point of view. Though I wrote many books that were set in the West, it wasnt until A Lady Bought with Rifles in 1976 that I was able to finally sell the kind of book I always wanted. In my Western woman novels, I have tried to show how it really was and depict little-known historical events while telling a good story.

Williams wrote juvenile novels for two decades between her first Western romances. Her premier juvenile book, Tame the Wild Stallion, won the Texas Institute of Letters Cokesbury Award in 1957, and was republished by TCU Press in 1985. The book was written as J. R. Williams, as were the twelve that followed. Among them, her Horsetalker in 1962 won a WWA Spur Award.

Between 1953 and 1973, she sold over sixty short stories, novelettes and articles to a variety of magazines, ranging from slick womens publications to Westerns and fantasy. The majority of them were written during a four-year period when she first began selling her work. Once she turned her attention to book-length projects, gothics and light romances emerged under the names Jeanne Creasy, Deidre Rowan, and Kristin Michaels as well as long historical novels as Megan Castell, Jeanne Foster, and Jeanne Williams. She published more than fifty books during the subsequent thirty years.

The novelists persistence and dogged determination to establish herself as a writer were traits deeply ingrained. The youngest of three children, Jeanne Kreie was born during the great depression on a wheat farm near the Kansas-Oklahoma border. Her parents lost their land during the 1930s dust bowl era, and her father eventually owned a small grocery store. Young Jeanne idolized her mother, whom she said was so good that I always felt sinful in comparison. She died of cancer when Jeanne was eight.

Her father was so distraught over his wifes death that he became a terrifying stranger, and the only thing that saved me, she said, was going to live with my mothers parents in the Missouri Ozarks. I loved the country and my spirit healed.

Williams taught herself to read before starting school. Her favorites were the Oz books, folk and fairy tales. She then discovered Kiplings Kim, the Jungle Books, Just So Stories, and the complete works of Edgar Rice Burroughs. She remembered devouring historical fiction and just about everything else in the library.

Her writing began soon after she learned to read, short stories and poetry that were illustrated with family cartoons. She excelled in English and history in a one-room country school, but math was not her forte. Aside from literary interests, she swam in Missouri creeks, explored mountains and caves, and rode horses when she wasnt helping her grandparents with the farm chores.

We had to attend church three times a week plus any revivals, and I was allowed to read the hymn book or the bible during the sermon. That was when I memorized the Song of Solomon and other parts I liked. We also had bible readings morning and nightif youre going to have one book drummed into you, the Bibles better than most. I read Dantes Divine Comedy when I was in fifth grade, and thats when I began writing my most ambitious book, a retelling of the bible. I gave out at the Tower of Babel and the Volsung Saga, which I didnt complete. She said she would have enjoyed comparing her early work with her Viking epic, The Heaven Sword, published in 1985.

Williams was a professional writer before she was ten, when paid for a poem published in the Sunday school paper. She remembers that everyone thought it was fine if I wanted to write, but no one knew how to sell it.

Married at eighteen to a World War II veteran, she wrote steadily while her husband attended classes at the University of Oklahoma. Poring over writers magazines, she systematically sent out short stories without a single sale. After her son Michael was born in 1949, her manuscript mailings came to a temporary halt. But I did write as much as I could between baby and house chores. Michael unthawed parts of me that had been frozen since my mother died. And Im grateful to my children for helping me grow up.

During her child-rearing years, Williams enrolled in the noted University of Oklahoma correspondence school writing course, taught by W. S. Campbell and Foster Harris. She said, I did the extensive lessons carefully, and I think its a pity I didnt have someone to read and criticize my manuscripts, which would have taught me more. Actually, writing schools are upside down. A beginner learns by writing, then criticism and revisions. Theory is worth nothing till one learns enough to know when to bear down.

After her husband was sent to Korea, she attended Oklahoma University, where she took manuscript critique courses while majoring in history, reasoning that she could teach until her writing began to sell. Foster Harris was my teacher and mentor, Williams recalled. We had a personal tragedy right before my husband left [for overseas] and I came to OU in miserable physical and emotional shape. I wrote every moment that I wasnt studying, taking care of my son Mike, or doing the necessities.

Harris assigned her a story each week and half an hour with him taught me more than all the correspondence courses and books Id read on writing. She had previously sold a story to Ranch Romances, and that was the beginning. When her husband returned from Korea, he moved his family to Texas, where she wrote full time. Most of her short stories were then sold along with the inevitable biographical and therapeutic novels.

Williams stayed in contact with Foster Harris until his death. Most of my early work was to make him proud of me, she said. For me and many others, he was an incomparable friend and teacher. Later, Leland Sonnichsen was an inspiration and sometimes made me examine what I was doing and define my aims.

Calling herself  a real self-slave driver, she made a conscious effort to spend as much time as possible with her two small children. She also did what Marcus Aurelius called the work of a human being. She volunteered her time in a Texas migrant workers clinic, and served on the War on Povertys Community Action Program. She also taught Sunday school, took part in church committee work, and was later involved in Tucson conservation and political groups. Because she loved animals, Williams served four years on the board of the International Society of Animal Rights.

After her work began to sell, she devoted her free time to writing, often turning out two hundred pages a month in daily stints of six to eight hours at her typewriter. She was later satisfied with half the output, writing from breakfast until noon as well as a couple of hours work in the afternoon or evening.

Call it six hours average at the machine plus research reading, lap revisions, and all the other tasks. I allow myself two days off a week in theory, but if theres nothing else I want to do, I write because trips and company put me behind.

I love to write. Sometimes I have a hard time getting going, or with a particular stretch, but I just hack through it. Its hard, hard work, she said, adding that she never planned to retire. One of the first novelists to balance historical background with romance, shes known for her solid research. Ive always had a strong love story and usually a fascinating villain. The most important thing in any book is characters the reader can care about.

The Arizona writers vacations have been spent, for the most part, in research that have taken her to various parts of the globe. She rafted down the Amazon River and danced in Bahias carnival to gain background atmosphere for The Left Hand Kingdom, her epic Brazilian novel. She said, Im a lover of wilderness and have camped in some pretty formidable ones. Norway, Holland, France, Italy, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Mexico, and Belize have also been entries in her travel log, as well as her trek over the Oregon Trail in Wyoming to research a book on Mormon handcart emigrants.

I have some projects that Ive been thinking about for years, but probably wont get them all done. When I decide on what to do next, I piddle a few days making notes, thinking about the people, readingthis takes longer if its an unfamiliar subject. I read all I can, making copious notes, and then figure out some kind of storyline. I never outlined my first thirty-odd books, but began with an idea, characters, and a loose bunch of things I wanted to include.

In order to sell these longer books, some kind of outline is needed but mine are pretty short, about ten pages. Its really easier for me to write the story than outline, which I always deviate from, anyway.

Willliams advises fledglings to write constantly, and to find a qualified writer to critique their work. Emphasizing the importance of rewriting and revisions, she said new writers should expect to be as dedicated to their craft as a surgeon is to his. Determination is all-important for first novels do manage to sell, despite formula writing that has taken over the marketplace.

Write what you care about most, and give it your best shot. Hang in there and send the work to all possible markets, applying any suggestions made, seeking to improve your writing. Being thyself is vital for growth and satisfaction as a writer.

The best part of writing for Jeanne Williams is the freedom that allows her to live where she chooses and to set her own working hours. Writing has been the main constant in my life. I cannot separate myself from it. I love being able to create people and places, and with my last books, Ive begun to have the pleasure of letters from readers who say one of my books was the best they had ever read. I like the independence of being a one-person industry, operating out of my head, utilizing the knowledge and values Ive acquired.

Learning to trust her own instincts has been an enormous plus in the authors life. She said following the wayward trails, even though she doesnt know where they will end, has helped her grow as a writer. Years of distrusting and rejecting her subconscious feelings have finally reversed, and she now relies heavily upon them.

Her first husband, Colonel Gene Williams, admired her writing. Her second, well-known English author, John Creasy, was a helpful critic, but he was so busy writing his own books that he had little time for hers. If you want an identity crisis, she said, try living and writing in the same house as the person who was at that time the most prolific in the world, with a constant flood of reprints and foreign editions coming in. That was probably the hardest part of my writing career.

Her third husband, Bob Morse, first typed her final drafts on a Kaypro word processor, but usually didnt discuss her work-in-progress. My daughter Kristin used to read all my manuscripts over my shoulder before she left home, but Ive always preferred not to have a lot of comment from anyone while Im working. Its distracting, creates doubts, and is often not valid. I believe in doing the book and then letting my agent and editor comment.

Copyright 2002 by Jean Henry-Mead. Excerpted from Maverick Writers and her forthcoming book, The Westerners (November 2002 from Medallion Press.) Reprinted here by permission of the author.