The Write Path #48 - "Light, Which Impresses," with Author Dorothy Ward!!!

Dorothy P. Ward is author of the recently released novel LIGHT, WHICH IMPRESSES. She earned a Ph.D. in English and American literature from the University of North Texas. For more than thirty years, she served as an administrator and faculty member at The University of Texas at El Paso. Currently, she lives on the outskirts of El Paso, Texas, with two unruly German shepherds, a blue-eyed horse, and a rescue donkey.

Her Website:  https://www.dorothypward.com/

Her Book Link:   https://tcupress.tcu.edu/9780875659398/

Welcome to the Write Path Podcast, where being an author, an actual author, still matters. This isn't the place for the Chat GPT experts or the AI buffs to churn out soulless content with no heart.  This is the place where authors share their journeys, explore their creativity, examine the "Why?" behind it all and come together to celebrate each other. This is the podcast for authors, about authors, and by an author, where the truth still counts and words still have power. Join Us!  You have a story to tell!

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This is the place where authors know that every page... is a step forward. Let's move forward together, let's move forward today. Listen now.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Right Path Podcast. Where being an author, an actual author, still matters. Folks, this is the podcast that's for authors, it's about authors, it's done by an author, where we share our journeys, we explore our creativity, and most importantly, we examine the evolusive why behind it all. Folks, our guest today uh it has an amazing story. I cannot wait to get into this. And uh this lane is the author of the book, Light Which Impresses. Please welcome the show, Dorothy Ward. Dorothy, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Dorothy, I'm doing very well, Rory. Thank you for inviting me, and it's a pleasure to be on the show to speak with you and and your listeners.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Thank you so much. Um, there is so much behind where this book came from and the story and whatnot. Uh, and I want to dig into all of it. Uh, to get us started, why don't you just tell everybody a little bit about who is Dorothy Ward and, you know, kind of what got you here?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Okay, thank you. Um, I um got my PhD in English and uh American literature from the University of North Texas. I got my master's degree and bachelor's degree from the University of Texas at El Paso in English with a creative writing option. And uh I have taught at the University of Texas at El Paso, been a faculty member and an administrator for over 35 years. I'm now retired. And so, with all of that Texas educational background, um, it might come as a surprise that actually I'm not from Texas. My father was uh an army officer, career army officer. And so I was born in Heidelberg, Germany, and within the first 12 years of my education, I attended eight different schools, so we moved a lot, but we kept returning to El Paso because Fort Bliss is headquartered in El Paso, and my father was with air defense, and that was a major air defense center. And so we returned often to El Paso, so I began to think of El Paso as my home. Um I began to think of it as my home region, you know, as a as an army brat that moved all the time. I wanted to put down roots, and this area was an area that I fell in love with uh because of the the blend of cultures, because of the because there are 730, 700,000 uh people approximately living in El Paso. Uh about 81% are Hispanic or Latinx. So there's a nice blend of culture in El Paso, and I loved the the culture, I loved the desert, the serenity of the desert, the beauty of the mountains, and was fascinated by the the history. Um I don't actually live in El Paso, I live on the outskirts. I live in New Mexico. I have for the last 20 years, but um El Paso is on the westernmost tip of Texas, which means it's on the border of New Mexico. So I I live across the street from Texas. So that's a little bit about me.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

My goodness. All right. Uh I mean I personally love it in Texas. You know, I've I've visited there a million times and uh just can't quite get my wife to to move from the Midwest. But um, you know, we're Indiana folks, and we kind of look at that as like the Texas of the Midwest.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

So at least that's what I'm telling myself since I still live here. But um, I mean that's that's amazing. So uh Army Bratt moved all over the place. And um now New Mexico, was there a particular draw to New Mexico uh for you, or is that like you do end up there, so to speak?

SPEAKER_00 3:40

I I truly am right across the street from Texas. I'm right across the state line, and I live here because I have um a blue-eyed horse, a rescue donkey, and two German shepherds. So I was looking for some land. So I moved into an area that I have an acre and a half of land with animals on it. So that that's why New Mexico. And it was uh it's it's it's right in the proximity, it's right across the street from El Paso as well. I drive down the street and suddenly I'm in Texas. So it was close to work and and close to uh close to my friends.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Great. The uh now the story behind your book, um, it sounds like it may be regional in nature, uh in terms of what you uh you grew up experiencing. Um, because the uh one of the people, I guess, in the book is a solar soldadara.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Soldadera.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Soldadera. Okay, got it. Um tell us a little bit about the book, uh, for folks who haven't had the opportunity to read all the information that I have, and then we can kind of get into where this all came from.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Okay, the book is set in El Paso, Texas, during the Mexican Revolution, and the Mexican Revolution was between 1910 and 1920. The book focuses on about 1911, 1916, so the earlier years of the Mexican Revolution. And so it's used as a backdrop. The main character, the protagonist, is a photographer, Sarah Delaney, and she lives in El Paso, and she takes photographs of the Mexican Revolution, among other photographs. And so the book is about her life experience in El Paso during the Mexican Revolution. Um, in the novel, uh, it actually moves through between two periods. I mentioned the 1911-1916, but it's in five sections, uh, and each section is framed by an interview. And those interviews are set in 1983. Uh, when the main character, Sarah Delaney, is 91 years old. She reaches out to two professors who are at the Institute of Oral History at the University of Texas at El Paso, and she invites them into her home to interview her about her life in El Paso during the Mexican Revolution. Well, that they're completely shocked by this contact because Sarah Delaney is known as a recluse, a bit of a recluse. And so she doesn't uh attend her photo openings, she doesn't attend museums, openings where they're discussing her photographs. She just is very much a recluse. And in fact, there's a bit of a rumor that she is either really debilitated or no longer alive. But she explains to them that they're both interested in revisiting the past. They both have something. The professors and she both have something to gain from revisiting the past past. So she's she's wanting to get something out of these interviews, which is why she invites them into her home. And as I said, the interviews, there are five sections, and the interviews, each interview is framed, uh well, let me rephrase that. Each section is framed by the interviews. And in the middle portion, it's Sarah telling her experiences during the Mexican, the social and political upheaval of the Mexican Revolution.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

And you mentioned it being regional. I I would like to add, one of the things that fascinated me as I was working through the novel is that it took place essentially during the revolution over a hundred years ago, but so many of the issues that were addressed at that time are still issues at the forefront. You know, the tensions that exist sometimes between the US-Mexico relationship, the countries, um, immigration, deportation, um, smuggling, uh, race profile, racial profiling and race riding. These are all sorts of issues that are still that were addressed during this period in El Paso and continue to be at the forefront of our national news.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

I noticed that you you mentioned that uh in some of the reading that I was doing to you know uh familiarize myself with yourself and your book. The um you mentioned these issues um several times. It seems like these issues are fairly important to you.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Well, I'll tell you that there are certain things that are important to me. The issues that we're faced with today, with immigration and the handling of immigrants and refugees. Um, during the Mexican Revolution, the border was much more porous. And uh people were leaving Mexico because of the the fighting, because they were they were being killed, they were were starving, they were being forced into the military, there was tremendous poverty, there was illness. And so we see some of the same today. And that that is important to me, the the uh the immigration and the refugees uh coming to the United States.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

I understand, I understand. The um in terms of how you've woven it into the book, the um well let me let me take a step back on that one because the way that this book kind of came to be also is a little bit unique, because you sort of started it one way and then maybe put it away for a little bit, then you came back to it, and then you kind of changed some things. What's this story there for the folks who who don't know anything about it yet?

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Well, in 1983, way back, um there was an article in the local newspaper about a woman, an elderly woman, who lived in Ciudad Juarez, which is right across the river from El Paso. She said she was a colonel in Pancho Villa's army. Well, that took me by surprise. One, I didn't know much about the Mexican Revolution, and I certainly didn't know about women in the Mexican Revolution. So I became very interested. My father was a history buff as well as a photographer, and he and I, along with two friends, got the address of the older woman and headed across the river to Juarez to meet with her. Unfortunately, when we got to her residence, she was no longer living there, and the neighbors would not give her new address. Understandably so, here strangers show up and are asking for an address. But that notion about a woman fighting in the revolution fascinated me. And so I started doing some research about soldadettas. And soldadettas were women who followed the troops, they were with the troops, and sometimes they preceded them because they would set up camp. They would cook the food, they would forge for supplies, they would raise children, they would uh care for the injured, and they'd pick up a gun and fight. Some of the soldadettas even led troops. And so this fascinated me. But in 1983, I was in the middle of working on my PhD, and I had doctoral comps and I had a doctoral dissertation to research and write. So I put it all aside to focus on completing my degree. And once I completed my degree, um I came back to it because it was it was a story that interested me. And um, as you said, I started after I'd done considerable research, I started writing the novel. And that was probably in the late 90s, so it took quite a while. It was a story just that just really grabbed me. And I started writing the novel, and when I started writing it, I thought Kata or Catalina, who is the soldier, that she was going to be the protagonist of my novel. I wrote about 120 pages, and and Catalina was the protagonist of the novel. Then I got a new position, and that new position was at the university, and that new position was very, very demanding in terms of time and energy. And so I simply didn't have the intellectual energy to continue writing the book. So I set the book aside, though I didn't forget about it. I I continued to read about the revolution and investigate it. Um but when I retired then, I thought, I'm writing this book, I'm finishing it. So I went to pick it up and read what I had written, and I realized I really cannot honestly write from the perspective of a Mexican woman fighting for her country. That that isn't going to be believable, it's not realistic, it's not honest. And so I set the book aside, rethought it, and came up with the character Sarah Delaney, who is the photographer. And so the Sol Dadetta still plays a major role in the novel. And she still, we still get into her experiences and memory, but the novel itself is told from the perspective of Sarah, the the photographer. So a lengthy way, the the the novel was finally published in July 2025, so it took quite a while to to uh complete it. But I'm I think the the decision to start anew was the right decision. And I think it's a better book because of it.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Nice, nice. You know, a lot of folks would just have sort of plowed right on through and said, no, this is the book, this is how we have to do it. Um was there a turn of events or was there, you know, something that happened that made you kind of say, I take it a step back? Uh did you hit a spot in the writing where you said, you know, wow, I I just can't do this anymore? Or was it just an overall gradual, you know, kind of, hey, I need to go to it to a different direction?

SPEAKER_00 13:29

I was ready to start writing the book again. And when I started reading what I had written so far, I thought, no, I I can't continue this. I I can't continue um writing in a believable fashion about experiences in Mexico when they weren't experiences that I was truly familiar with. And I just didn't, again, I didn't think it was an honest book writing from the perspective of the Mexican woman. Not that you, not that as a fiction writer, I mean we do, I I also wasn't a woman living in the 1910s either, uh, although I may look it. But um they they uh you know, I I I think there's a level of creativity and experience that you write from that may not be something, it may be an emotional experience you had versus an actual experience as a writer that you can write from. But I just thought there was too much involved in this notion of the Mexican woman for me to assume that um that that I could be in her head. And I just didn't think I was gonna make a believable book that way. So I I and it hurt, by the way, to start over. Uh it hurt terribly. Um, but but I did start over.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Wow. I mean, you had to really want to put this book out to be able to stop and say, I can't do it the way I was doing it. So, you know, there seems like there's quite a bit of desire uh behind this, you know, almost a will to put this out. Uh, I'm I'm curious, um, where's that coming from? This really wanting to get this book out there.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

I knew I had a good story. I knew, and and and plus the book is a bit of a love story to El Paso and El Paso history. Um it's it's not it's not necessarily a pretty history, um, as is true with much of you know cut our country and other countries. Uh, we don't necessarily have a pretty history, but it it was it was a love for El Paso and and uh what the people of the community live through and the relationship that exists uh between El Paso and Ciudad Warez. So I I it was it was a good story. It was a good story to be told. And I also like strong um unconventional women characters, and that's that's what I was able to create with both the photographer and with Catalina the Sodadera. So I was able I was able to develop really strong characters.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Are you one of the characters in the book?

SPEAKER_00 16:06

No.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

No, none of this is based on you, huh?

SPEAKER_00 16:09

No, none of it. Well, I mean, I think I'm probably a strong unconventional woman as well, but that's kind of where I was going. But but no, I I don't see myself as one of the characters.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Okay. Um I I ask this often nowadays, it seems like, but um only when still only when it hits me. The uh again, there seems like there's a big purpose behind this story. When we're when we're writing our books, whatever they may be, uh we tend to have someone uh that we're kind of envisioning, you know, uh a character or a person or uh even ourselves sometimes, where we're writing our book to someone or for someone. And I'm very curious, you know, this this purpose-driven book that you're putting out there. Um who are you writing this book to or for?

SPEAKER_00 17:00

You know, that that's an interesting question, and I haven't really thought a lot about it. I mean, I in part I was writing it to El Pasoans because we we don't get a lot of the history um about the region in our education, um, either in El Paso or elsewhere. Um and so some of it was sharing some of the history of El Paso. I I now that you asked that question, I think also it was for my father. Um my father was um, as I said, a history buff and a photographer. He loved, though he was from Florida um originally, he loved the Southwest and loved El Paso, and um was very interested in preserving the history of it. And he had great faith in me. And so he he knew I was working on the book and before he passed away, and he um hoped that I would finish it. So I think part of it was was finishing it for my father as well. But it was finishing it for me too.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Sure. I love that. I'm I'm glad to hear that. All right. Um the uh I'm I'm sure your father, you know, would approve of the book.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

I I hope so. I think he would. I think he would.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Wonderful. Um goodness gracious. The uh the process is something I always like to ask about. But you kind of had a little process and then you left it off and then you came back. Uh when you started writing, as opposed to when you got to pick back up writing. Um, was the process changed from there? Had you not really developed one yet? And you know, what was it when you got going on the book for real the second time?

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Well, I did a tremendous amount of research prior to initiating the book. I did a lot of reading of books, of memoirs of people who lived at the time in the El Paso region and fought in the Mexican Revolution. Um, I I read novels about the Mexican Revolution, read uh newspapers that were written at the time, um, went to museums, went to, took took walking tours that were conducted by local historians, um, focused on the revolution. So there was a, and I studied photographs of the period and and read about photographers and all sorts of things. A tremendous amount of research went into preparing to write the book. Um, and so once I felt that I had sufficient knowledge of the book, uh, you know, I knew the beginning. Well, this is really the second half of it. Once I returned to the book, I reviewed the research that I had done, and I had the beginning in mind and the end in mind. But I allowed the book to develop organically. I'm not somebody who outlines what's going to happen in the book. Um, and so I let it grow organically, and some of it was driven by the historical events that were taking place. As I read the newspaper and read what was happening at that time period in El Paso and in Ciudad Juarez, that drove a little bit of the direction of the book. But um it's E.L. Doctoro, who is a writer that I like very much, a historical fiction writer. Well, he writes more than historical fiction, but he's famous for his historical fiction, the author of Ragtime and The March, those those novels. He said writing uh for him was like driving at night with the lights on. You can see just so far ahead, but you eventually complete the journey. And so that that's I that's sort of how I wrote. I knew again that knew the beginning, knew the end, had my main characters, and I let them go. I uh when I first started writing because I was working, I was writing in the evenings, and so I would spend two to three hours at home in the evening. Um, once I retired and revisited the novel, then I would start writing about mid-morning and write till about mid-afternoon. And it was important for me to write daily because I found that if I took a break, which I did on occasion, went out of town or whatever, um, it was hard to get back to the novel. When I once I got back, it took a long time to get to where I was going. And so that that whole process uh was important to try to write on a daily basis so that it was all fresh. I also tried to always conclude uh with some lines on a page, so I wasn't facing a blank page, which is a bit daunting as a writer, as you would know. So I I try to make sure that uh I come back to something I was I was working on and had started on the page and knew where I was was going. But but that was my process, and I'd continue. To do research as it was needed. For example, one of the characters learns to drive a 1913 roadster. And so I had to study how how do you drive one of those cars? Because it's completely different from how you would drive a vehicle today. And so I would do research on certain topics as I needed, as I was writing. So that's that's a little bit about the the writing process that I followed. Once I completed the novel, I did a tremendous amount of revising. When I completed the novel, the first draft of the novel, it was a hundred pages longer than it is today. The book right now is about 382 pages long. So it was a hundred pages longer. I'd gotten a little bit into the weeds with history. And so I had to pair back some of the historical details because they were accurate, but they didn't add to the progress of the story necessarily. Sometimes, and that's that's what I was doing, and painful as it was, but but yeah, I did pair back the book considerably.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

And I think it's a better book as a result.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

So you acted as your own editor on the book as well?

SPEAKER_00 23:27

I did.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Oh my goodness. I mean, it's almost like being your own lawyer in court. So hard, so hard to do.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Well, it and it was hard. And I probably went through, oh, I probably six, six six versions of it, you know, with it each time I would pair it back, and then I'd go through it once again. So it took months and months to revise the book.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Right. Good for you, though. I mean, that's uh that's quite the skill to be able to act as your own um, you know, editor, you know, moving forward. Um so wow, okay. The um I know you have your main characters, and um you went through, you sort of fleshed those out, you know, had some backstory. Uh just in the couple minutes, we got to hear about Sarah, you know, for instance, we got to hear a lot um that you had already kind of put into her backstory and whatnot. Um, how about your other characters? Now, when you write in terms of how you personally went about it, you said you did it organically and it sort of just happened. Do the characters then sort of become introduced because of the story? And hey, maybe I need a shopkeeper here, or maybe I need somebody else who has a little bit of an influential part, or do you have a cast of characters first and then the story works around getting them into it?

SPEAKER_00 24:41

You know, it was a little bit of both. I had the main most of the main characters already as I started writing, but as I continued writing, um, I introduced new characters um that became quite important in the novel. For example, there's one who uh A.J. Otis, who owns a photography shop and he develops photographs, and he um is interested in Sarah's photographs of the Mexican Revolution when she first takes them. She she is um her her her bow is at a captain in the what was essentially a foreign legion of the Mexican Revolution. There were a number of foreign soldiers who fought in the revolution, um, and Garibaldi was the leader of that foreign foreign legion, I'll call it for lack of a better word or term. Um, and he he her bow her beau bought her the camera and took her over to the camp over in Juarez while there was a lull waiting. There were there were peace negotiations, and so um, and and and and this is based on fact actually. Uh El Pasuans crossed the river readily, were fascinated with the with the insurrectos, the rebels, uh fighters, and would go over there and visit with them and take photographs with them and um take food and toss coins to them and toss fruit across the river to them. And it was there was just a fascination with them. And so she has gone across the border to take photographs. And when she takes her photographs to be developed, the individual, AJ, who is developing the photographs, is fascinated by them and wants to buy the negatives and create picture postcards, which again, those were very, very popular at that time, the selling of picture postcards and the collection of them. And so he was a character that I had not thought about prior. But once she makes that connection and he takes her under his wing, he becomes a very important character in the novel and then is developed. So he's one that I didn't think of in advance. Um a number of the characters it's historical fiction, so none of the none of the main characters are actual people, but several of the characters are based on actual people, um, or or a combination of people. And so um that that lived in El Paso during that period and and were involved in the revolution in some way or another. One is a newspaper reporter, uh, another one is the the Beau, who is a captain in the the military, and then the photographer, um A.J. Otis, the the man who owns the the shop, um, is is sort of based on a photographer here in El Paso. Very, very loosely, but um, you know, not much beyond the fact that he was a photographer, but nevertheless, it it spurred the development of this character.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Nice. It's what works in that moment, too, in terms of the comparison. So that was that was the guy. I gotcha. Um, you know, I it's it's always interesting to hear how people come up with, you know, their stories, come up with their characters and that sort of thing. Um, that is another thing I think that makes the editing a little bit difficult. Uh, do you find that you get sort of attached to your characters? You mentioned sometimes we have to get rid of our little babies, you know. But uh do you become attached to your characters after you've put so much into them and you've brought them into the storyline and um almost obligated to them?

SPEAKER_00 28:09

I I do actually. I I hurt when they hurt. Um, you know, I hate to, I know I'm going to put somebody through hell uh because of the pain that's going to result, but but I I write it out anyway. And yes, they become they become real and uh uh they become real people. And uh so it yeah, it's it's a painful process.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Yeah. The um the the Mexican War, you know, that you've talked about, the revolution that you uh have discussed, did you become interested in that because of sort of where you lived in the history there? Or did this was this something you came across in your studies? I mean, you're very well versed in history, you know, and things like that. So did this period and this particular event have, you know, any kind of personal connection for you uh because you've devoted a lot of time to learning about it, writing about it, you know, and and almost living in it uh for this period while you put the book up.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

You know, it it truly hinged on that chance moment of here's the newspaper article about a woman who said she was a colonel in Pancho Villa's army. That was the spark, and that's what hooked me and and got me interested in the Mexican Revolution. Having said that, El Paso um has a tremendous amount of history. And so, for example, there's a laundromat that still exists that's close to the border. And so El Pasoans, I mean, when the revolution took place, one of the major battles uh of the first portion of the revolution was in the Battle of Ciudad Juarez. And so El Pasoans climbed to the top of the laundromat, the or the laundry. The laundry had a flat roof, and they stood on the laundry and looked across the border at the fighting. Um it was quite a big deal. It was a piece of entertainment. People would line the rivers, uh, the the river rather, the the levee, to watch the the fighting going on in Juarez. And so it became really something that was of interest and of uh that was of entertainment. So there's so many sites still in El Paso. There's a famous hotel, Hotel Paso del Norte, that plays a major role in the novel that um that still exists and is still um um a major hotel downtown. It's been renovated multiple times, and that too, you know, the the flat roof served as a vantage point to watch the revolution. So just the fact that there is so much there. Uh, you know, Pancho Villa was in El Paso, uh, General Pershing, these are characters that that are part of the novel, historical characters that are part of the novel and ingrained and that Sarah Delaney interacts with. Um, and so that there's just so much of that history still visible in El Paso. I mentioned that laundry, it actually has pock marks on it from the bullets that crossed over the border during the revolution. So all of that was uh fascinating to me and had me hooked.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

My goodness.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

If I may, I I want to mention something about the title, because I know the title's a little bit unusual, but it's actually also part of it's taken from the epigraph in the novel. Um, and when I was doing my research, part of it was reading a manual for the Kodak 3A folding pocket camera, which is the camera that uh that uh Sarah had when she first started her beau gave it to her for her 19th birthday. And so I needed to know about that camera. And as I was reading the manual, I came across this that I thought when I read it, this is beautiful, this is a found poem, and this fits the novel perfectly. So if I may read it, um the first thing to remember is that the light which impresses the photographic image upon the sensitive film in a fraction of a second, when it comes through the lens, can destroy the film as quickly as it makes the picture. And so that leads into the novel that that something that uh that you can that that you can create, you can also destroy very easily. And so the light which impresses um fits with the the the direction of the novel without giving anything away.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

Gotcha. That was definitely one of the questions I was gonna ask you before I got done. So I'm glad you brought it up. It is a very unique title, so it had to have a meaning somewhere behind it. Um, you know, I love this, and uh I appreciate you sharing you know all of this about how you know your character development and so on. Um, as you've uh gotten this together, you act as your own editor and so on. Um, how did you handle the publishing end of this whole thing?

SPEAKER_00 33:03

You know, and and I would say this to listeners who haven't published don't give up. It's just hard to get published. It simply is. There's a lot of work out there. And I tried to have it published commercially with a larger press, but I had to have an agent to do that. And I I submitted to agent after agent after agent and could never get any buy-in. And I I finally thought about it and thought, well, okay, why am I trying a commercial press when I might find a smaller press that would uh be interested in it and provide the same sort of attention? And so with that in mind, I started looking at university presses. And um the the one that ended up, well, it was actually the first one I submitted to was TCU Press out of Fort Worth. And I submitted to them, and and they published both fiction, nonfiction, and and uh scholarly uh manuscripts as well. But they are interested in Texas literature and Texas history. And so I found a publisher that had that niche, and I could submit to them, and and luckily they accepted it. So what I would say to listeners who haven't published is is don't give up and and continue to look. There are independent publishers, uh, there are university publishers. Um, there if you've got a good book, you'll find somebody who's interested. Don't don't give up on yourself. I I'll share one piece. I mentioned that I got my master's degree uh in English with a creative writing background. And so my thesis, my master's thesis was a novel. And um it was back in the day where you sent things snail mail and you you you sent hard copies of material. And so I sent to an agent, and the very first agent I sent to said, love it, send me the book. And so I sent her the entire book. Well, she wrote back and said, I don't think your book, I I like your book, but I don't think it's strong enough to carry both characters. I never submitted the book again. I let that I let that tell me that it shouldn't be published. Um and so what I'm trying to stress is don't be like I was when I was, you know, 22, 23 years old. Keep keep keep at it and find the publisher that that'll work for you.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

Nice. Nice. The um with this particular kind of a book, which is based on apparently an incredible article. That really was life-changing, this article. Um, but uh how do you go about marketing this then?

SPEAKER_00 35:52

Well, boy, that has been a lesson for an old woman uh on the on the marketing. I tell you what, I thought um um you make it and they will come, uh sort of thing. That's what we all think when we write. Yeah, that just isn't the case. So I'm learning to do a variety of things. I just got a website created uh to help market it. I'm doing podcasts to try to introduce people to it. Uh my next my next approach is to go to um the local libraries that may be sponsoring book groups and to try to um get them to adopt um it as the the book as one of their books that they will read and discuss. And I'm putting myself out there to to attend book groups. Um, you know, I have to say TCU Press has a wonderful marketing coordinator who every week sends out information, and so these are all her ideas. Um and so I'm I'm trying to follow up, but what I've learned is not only is it your job to write the book, it's your job to sell it. I mean, somebody has spent a quite a bit of money publishing it for you, and so you've got to get out there and and do your part. The other thing I've done is I've marketed it to a lot of libraries. I've written to to libraries uh telling them about the the book and and uh trying to encourage them to purchase the book for the library collection. So those are some of the things that I've done to market it.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

Well, getting on the podcast is certainly a great idea. And uh I agree. You're a wonderful guest. So I I think you're gonna do fine there. You left out a very big component of marketing your book, though. And I'm um curious you're not if you're doing anything on social media at all.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

You know, I I'm not.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

It's okay.

SPEAKER_00 37:39

Other than the other than the website, I I I so want to do Facebook and I so want to do um Xers, you know, something like that. But but you know, the truth is I just I I don't think I'm working on another book, and I I just don't know that I have the energy to do all of those different things, but you're absolutely right. I and I probably will come around to to doing some some things on on uh social networks, but I but I haven't yet.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

I just had to ask. It was such a huge leave out when you were giving me this great list of all these things, and I went, there's a story here. Somebody doesn't like social media.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

I'm avoiding it.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

I gotcha. All right, had to ask, had to ask. But uh no, I appreciate uh your honesty, you know, about all of it, because you know, um uh I'm an older guy and I had a heck of a time getting into things like social media and learning, you know, a lot of this stuff uh back in the day. And if it wasn't for my kids teaching me all this stuff, I'm not sure I wouldn't know how to use it today either. But um it it really does um there's a different way to market every book, and so you don't have to be in any one spot. Uh it's just that some people have certain strengths some places and uh and not others. So you know again, I appreciate you being open and honest about it. It's important for folks to hear this. Um when you went through your um your smaller publisher, okay, so is it what you would call a hybrid publisher? I mean, do you pay for the books that uh that you bring to the shows? I mean, do they provide you some sort of service like that? I'm curious what the upside was to going through the publisher you went through for the folks who listen.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

Well, they will they if if you go to the events that where they're they have a tent, uh then they bring the the books for you to sell. Um but otherwise, yes, you're correct. If if if I were to do a reading and then I would have to purchase the books in advance and and uh have them at the reading. Okay, so they so yeah, so so TCU Press, if you if you attend some of their events, for example, in November, there's the Texas Book Festival that I'm hoping to to be a part of uh with TCU Press. And they'll they'll set everything up, they'll make all the arrangements, I just show up. And uh so I can do that.

SPEAKER_01 40:03

Nice, nice. I'm sure you can. Um now you you alluded to something here a second ago when I was asking you about social media, and I'm not gonna let it go. You said you're doing another book.

SPEAKER_00 40:13

I am, I am.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

Tell us a little bit about that if you can.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

Oh, I'd love to. I've got about 150 pages on it, and and I will tell you, it's it's you know, Henry James said, try to the writer Henry James said, try to be the type of person that doesn't uh just let things go by, that you that you're aware, I didn't say that very well, but it essentially don't don't don't overlook things that you're introduced to, take advantage of them. Well, when I was doing the research on the Mexican Revolution, there was reference to a major battle at Cowboy Park in Juarez, and I had never heard of Cowboy Park. So, and it doesn't exist nowadays. So I wanted to know what what in the world is Cowboy Park? Well, lo and behold, there's a book written about it. And so I got the book, and it was at one time uh steer wrestling um was outlawed in certain states like Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, places you wouldn't think it would be outlawed, but it was outlawed because of steers getting injured. Cowboys would practice their skills on the ranch and injure the cattle and they'd have to be put down. So um so it was outlawed. So some um enterprising um people in El Paso bought an area in Juarez and opened up a park for rodeo. And so that was Cowboy Park. Well, in reading about it, I came across again another woman who was a rodeo performer. She was a steer wrestler, um, or steer roper rather, a steer roper. And and we're not talking about calf roping now, we're talking about steers. And so she um oftentimes beat the men at the competitions. And so I thought, well, I'll be darned. Now we have women in the rodeo. Let me start reading about them. And as I started researching them, I learned that in the 1920s, that was the heyday for women in rodeo. And they competed on bronch riding, they competed on steer wrestling, uh, trick riding, uh, uh bulldogging. They competed in a number of ways and made that they both had the adventure of traveling and being independent, but they also, when they won, they earned good money, more money that than they would earn in the traditional roles. And so um it was the and they were tremendously skilled women. And eventually they got pushed out of the rodeo. As we moved towards the depression, um, there were economic, societal, political pressures that were put into place where they were no longer allowed to participate and compete in these sort of rough stock uh rodeo events. And instead, we came up with the beauty queen, so the rodeo queen. So women began to be judged on their appearance versus on their skills. Um, and so that is the basis of the book. I am writing about some women rodeo writers, and uh developing that over over that span from where they were very popular and it was the heyday to the period where they're pushed out of the rodeo.

SPEAKER_01 43:28

Wow. Okay. I I mean knew there was a story there. I'm like, all right, come on, we got we gotta get to this. So, all right, we're getting a scoop on the new book that's coming out. I love it. So all right. Well, congratulations on this book and uh good luck on the next book. And certainly would love to have you back on when you have that come out. Right talk about it at that as well. Um, I do have one more question for you, and before I hit that, I want to make sure that I get some information out. Um, normally I ask about things like social media links and all that, but we'll just say contact information. Uh and maybe website, um, you know, email, any way that somebody might be able to contact you to ask about the book, you know, purchase it, give us your contact information so everybody can write it down real quick.

SPEAKER_00 44:11

Okay. Uh I I do have a website. It's DorothyPard.com. Um, and on that website, it does have a way to contact me, and it also has links to the book. You can you can purchase the book as an e-copy or as a paperback from most um book distributors from from TCU Press directly or Amazon or Bookshop or Barnes and Noble. So it's it's readily available.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

Love it. All right, good deal. Um, as we kind of bring this down to a close time-wise, I want to thank you for sharing everything you have. I I really would love to read that original article because apparently it was incredible. Um, do you have that article still?

SPEAKER_00 44:53

I do, though I can't find it, but I've got I've got it here in the house somewhere. I printed it out, but uh I can't find it for the moment.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

My goodness. Well, I hope you do find it again, because that's something that definitely should be, you know, uh maybe uh an appendix uh, you know, to the book or something, maybe appendix A, something like that, right? Because that's what created all this. That's amazing. Um, anyway, just you know, thought I'd throw that out there.

SPEAKER_00 45:16

But good suggestion.

SPEAKER_01 45:18

Um, you're a published author, and so congratulations on that. And we have a lot of folks who listen to this show who are either authors who are not quite there yet, uh, maybe they are aspiring authors, and they all love the answer to this question, no matter what it is. So I like to ask it of all my published authors that come on the show. Um, what is your best advice to folks who are out there and are just not quite where you are yet?

SPEAKER_00 45:45

This may sound like it's simplistic, but right. Um Doctorow said talking about writing, outlining, researching, none of those make up writing. Writing makes up writing. So you just finally I mean you've got to do the hard work to prep to write, but finally you just have to sit down and start writing. And you and know that your first draft is not gonna be a masterpiece. It's gonna be the clay that you've put on the wheel that you're now going to shape and mold as you revise it. But the key is to start writing, and you're never too old. I I'm I'm living proof. You're never too old to to start writing. Uh, but it it takes putting your your seat in a seat and and putting your fingers on a computer or a pen or however you choose to write, but write.

SPEAKER_01 46:45

Wonderful. I love that advice. That's absolutely fantastic. Um, and it seems simplistic, but you're right. Uh, I think it's sort of the thing that we avoid. Uh, you know, we want to we want to do all the other stuff. Let me make my outline, let me prepare for it. But at some point you actually have to sit down and write. Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. All right. Uh Dorothy P. Ward, author of uh Light, which impresses, uh, with a fantastic story behind it. Dorothy, thank you for sharing that story and for letting all of us know, you know, what was behind it, what went into the work, and about the new works yet to come about the rodeo. Uh it's been a fantastic interview. You're a great guest, and I really appreciate you being on today. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 47:29

Thank you so much, Rory, and I appreciate the the opportunity to talk with you. And you're a wonderful host.

SPEAKER_01 47:35

Oh, thank you for that. Well, I'll take it. Folks, that's been another fantastic episode of the Right Path Podcast, where you know what, the truth still matters and words still have power. Uh, this is the place for authors who know that every single page is a step forward towards finding your right path. Until next time.