Bound for the Promise-Land

Visit Troy Smith's website

Troy D. Smith, a member of Western Writers of America, is a recent winner of  the Spur Award for his novel , and a finalist for the Medicine Pipe Award. Troy was also a 1998 Spur Award finalist. He has over thirty published magazine articles, poems, and short stories to his credit, several of which have appeared here in American Western Magazine. Other publications include Louis LAmour Magazine, Wild West, Muzzleloader, and many others. One of his recent short stories, about a Native American Vietnam vet, appears in Loren Estleman's new Western anthology, .

In his spare time, Troy loves to shoot his guns, take walks deep in the woods or climb to high places where he can sit and take in in the green hills that stretch for miles.   He is currently enrolled in college, working on his degree in English and History, with a view towards teaching.

RTW [ReadTheWest.com]: Congratulations on winning a Spur Award! That must be pretty exciting stuff for you. Care to tell me a little bit about how you found out, what you felt upon hearing the news, and anything special you may have done to celebrate...

TDS [Troy D. Smith]:   "Exciting" is a considerable understatement. I've cast my eye longingly toward such an award for years. Such acknowledgment from my peers has immeasurable meaning for me. I came home one afternoon to find that my wife and daughter had printed up an official-looking "congrats on winning the Spur Award" certificate. I thought at the time that it was meant as a little supportive encouragement, and my response was, "aw, how sweet." My wife Rhee then gave me a very serious look and said, "You don't understand, I just spoke to W.C. Jameson on the telephone. You really did win!" I was quite happy, needless to say. In fact, even after another phone conversation and an email from Awards Administrator W. C. Jameson, I have found myself going back to check the wording in the email, thinking that there must be a mistake somewhere.

RTW:   Obviously, you underestimate your talent as a writer. So let's talk a little about your background how and when did you know you wanted to be a writer?

TDS: I believe that most of us who claim to be writers were writers long before we realized it. I have always loved telling stories and stringing words together. If I had to pick a specific time, though, I would say since I was 20. I was working at a K-Mart then, buffing floors. They would lock me in alone for twelve hours, and it would take about three hours to do the work. I soon ran out of things to read, and started producing my own entertainment. It was a couple of years later before I began to even think about the possibility of publication, and still another couple of years before it happened. In 1995 my first short story, Mourning Glory, appeared in Louis LAmour Western Magazine. At the time I was writing in almost every genre, but it was consistently the Westerns which sold.

RTW:  What drew you to this genre?

TDS: I am a member of the last generation to grow up on Westerns. When I was a kid in the 70s, on Saturday night you could still choose between watching a new episode of Gunsmoke or going to the movies to catch either John Wayne or Clint Eastwood or you could read something new by Louis LAmour or Elmer Kelton, or even read Western comics.

I enjoy writing mystery, science-fiction, and fantasy, but none of those genres ever clicked with me in quite the same way that Westerns do. I love to write stories and to read stories about powerful, emotional conflicts and confrontations. A frontier setting is ideal for this. So is a Civil War setting, which is my other favorite subject. With Bound for the Promise-Land I had the opportunity to do both.

RTW: Whose work has had the greatest influence on you?

TDS: Two that I can name right off the bat are Elmer Kelton and Larry McMurtry. I have always loved the way Kelton makes both his heroes and villains seem human and believable. I bear in mind his statement that his characters are not good guys in white hats fighting bad guys in black hats, but rather two guys in gray hats; one trying to bring about change, and the other resisting it.

I like the way that McMurtry uses humor to make you love his characters, and let down your guard, then suddenly throws tragedy and death on them from out of nowhere. It is powerful and affecting, and I try to do something similar in my novels.

If pressed to name one writer who has influenced me more than any other, and who is most responsible for my becoming a writer, I would not hesitate to name Stan Lee. I lived on his comic books as a kid Spider-man and the Hulk, as well as his Western characters. He changed the way comic books were written in the 1960s, focusing on characterization as much or more as on plot, and made even the most flamboyant heroes seem natural and real.

All three of those writers, diverse as they are, focus on characterization. I try to do the same.

RTW:  Tell us a little bit about Bound for the Promise-Land. Where did you get your ideas?

TDS:: The idea for this book first came to me when I was listening to a religious service. I suppose I was about 20 at the time. The speaker wasnt very enthralling, but his subject made me think. He spoke about liberty, and the true meaning of it. This made me think of slaves in the previous century. They were technically freed, but were they, really? They were no more welcome in the North after the Civil War than they were in the South. This made me want to tell a story about a slave on a quest for the meaning of freedom. The added irony of having him serve out a long career as a soldier first in the Civil War and later in the Indian wars, added depth to the whole concept. I would make sure that the character considered the implications of fighting for the freedom of his own people, then fighting to take freedom away from someone else.

I tried to start it immediately, but was very unhappy with the results. I was not good enough yet to do justice to such a powerful topic, and one that was so important to me. So I shelved the idea for awhile, and concentrated on honing my skills by writing simpler things. After five years, I decided I was ready.

RTW: How long did it take to write?

TDS: It took me three years to write the book. I was also working on many other projects at the same time, short stories and magazine articles, so I dont know that it took three full years in that sense. Technically, though, I started it in 1995 and finished it in 1998.

RTW:  What did you enjoy most about writing this book?

TDS: I loved being able to work with such a large cast of rich supporting characters. Many of them came alive to the point that I hated to leave them. I believe the reader will feel the same way. I also think they will feel for the hero, Alfred, and root for him to triumph over the world around him in the end.

RTW: I understand you are a native of Tennessee. What effect, if any, does that have on the subjects and characters you write about?

TDS:  I was born and bred in Tennessee. There are a lot of Western writers from Tennessee, I have noticed, and many of them are quite good. We have our share of cowboys and horse ranches and Tennessee once was the western frontier, so there are a lot of connections.

Ultimately, though, I am a Southerner rather than a Westerner. I am not as concerned with setting as some writers might be. I think that the land itself should be a character, yes, but a secondary one. I think that my body of work reflects the Southern tendency to focus on the dark places of the human heart- and this also is something which all readers understand on a primal level.

I cant think of any other book which deals with the same subject in quite the same way as mine. This is not to say that there arent any, of course. However, I have striven to present the African-American experience of repression, the Native American struggle for independence, and the universal longing for freedom and dignity in such a way that it is understandable to all.

RTW: If you could only afford to have 3 books in your personal library, which three titles would they be?

TDS: That is a tough one, isnt it. The complete works of Shakespeare, of course enough timeless stories and characters to keep one occupied for a lifetime. And the Bible, for its poetry and beauty. After that, heck, Id have to say Lonesome Dove. I could read that book over and over again and never get tired of it. Something about a story which features a charming, intelligent, shiftless Tennessean just speaks to me.

RTW: What advice would you give to new writers trying to break into the market?

TDS: More than anything else, persevere. Keep writing, even if you dont think your work is as good as it should be, it will get better the more you do it. Keep sliding manuscripts into that mailbox. Your big break could be just around the corner, but if you give up and dont turn that corner you will never know. In addition to learning the technical craft, which is very important, learn to know yourself, and other people.

RTW: Thank you very much for taking time to do this interview.  Would you like to close with a favorite quote?

TDS: I love to paraphrase Oakley Halls words in the foreword to Warlock: nonfiction is the search for facts, and fiction is the search for truth. My own personal motto is Dont write about things that happen to people, write about people that things happen to.
And of course, Taylor, I want to thank you for providing us with such a wonderful forum for reading and discussing our favorite genre. Your hard work is appreciated by us all.

RTW: Thank you, Troy. Our best to you on winning the Spur Award. Keep writing!