writer Rod Miller

Certain things from the Old West are so firmly embedded in history—both scholarly and popular—that they are ever-present. You don’t have to look far to find a book, magazine article, mov...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2024/04/my-favorite-book-part-30.html

Not long Ago, The Atlantic magazine ran a feature titled “The Great American Novels.” The editors (with lots of help) compiled a list of the best works of book-length fiction published i...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-great-american-novels.html

In my youth I could draw a little and for years harbored dreams of becoming a commercial artist. But I lacked the patience required to be good at it. However, I would still draw sketchy cartoons ...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2024/03/luck-of-draw.html

This is a leap year. Leap years come around every four years to keep our calendar more or less harnessed to the sun in its travels. February, being the shortest month on the calendar, gets th...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2024/02/time.html

The history of the Old West is rife with notorious outlaws. Likewise, famous lawmen. But there were a few who, at one time or another, wore both hats, black and white. One such was a Utah cowbo...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2024/02/outlawman.html

A writer friend and I were talking a while back. He mentioned a book he had read in which a character under fire heard a bullet strike a tree, then heard the report of the rifle. My friend su...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2024/01/speed-of-sound.html

All My Sins Remembered is now available in paperback and eBook, as well as the original hardcover edition. I have wrenched my elbow patting myself on the back about this book, so this time I ...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2023/12/still-sinning.html

After my latest rant on abuse of our shared language, a friend suggested I did not like to see language evolve. But it happens. It’s something that can’t be helped. Most of the time it do...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2023/12/stupid-words-redux.html

Read any good books lately? Along with numerous other writers, I was asked by the Shepherd.com web site to list the three best books I read in the past year. Not necessarily books that were ne...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2023/11/read-any-good-books-lately-along-with.html

You hear a lot about “hacks” nowadays. Not, in this case, “hack” as a means to cut or sever or chop with repeated irregular or unskillful blows, as most dictionaries define the word...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2023/10/really-stupid-words-chapter-22.html

This story starts a few years ago but got derailed when Covid shut the world off for a time. A radio producer from Ireland contacted me to say he lived and worked in County Kerry, homeland of...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2023/09/on-air-in-ireland.html

The August 2023 issue of Roundup Magazine, official publication of Western Writers of America, focuses on the theme “Writing the Traditional Western Novel” in a series of articles. One st...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2023/08/see-page-26.html

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2023/07/nothing-to-say.html

How does a young man who fled Missouri fearing a murder charge make a new life in the West? How does a mountain man make a living when the fur trade dries up? How does a Ute boy on the verge ...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2023/07/coming-attraction.html

Not long ago, we lost a good friend of mine. Jim Fain is gone, but won’t soon be forgotten. Jim was a photographer of many talents, but specialized in rodeo action. I’ve got more than a ...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2023/06/some-cowboy.html

We citizens of the United States sometimes forget that we do not own the West. Most everything that counts as cowboy came to us from south of the border, courtesy of Spanish and Mexican vaque...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2023/06/my-favorite-book-part-29.html

  There is a curse, wrongly attributed to the Chinese, that says, “May you live in interesting times.” We certainly do. As most of you probably know, that strange assemblage of little...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2023/05/interesting-times.html

Movies and television programs are very much a matter of opinion. What some like, others despise. The same holds true for actors. Portrayals of cowboys on the big (and small) screen range fro...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2023/04/silver-screen-cowboys-i-have-loved.html

In recent weeks I’ve had the opportunity to spend time on university campuses at opposite ends of my home state of Utah. At my alma mater, Utah State University in Logan, I met with a class...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2023/04/school-days.html

Book reviews can be helpful for readers. Honest book reviews, that is, not the puff pieces authors often ask friends to post online. An honest review that expresses the reviewer’s opinion o...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2023/03/to-read-or-not-to-read.html

Not long ago I was asked to do an online interview with a publisher of Western novels—not my own. Dusty Saddle Publishing , DSP for short, in an effort to wave the flag for Western literature, ...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2023/03/talk-talk-talk.html

Latigo Brown is a cowboy. A real cowboy, not like those TV and movie cowboys who ride everywhere at a high lope firing off six-shooters and hardly ever come into contact with a cow. But he fin...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2023/02/at-movies.html

Writers—including yours truly—are often asked where they get their ideas. It is not always an easy question to answer. But in the case of my short story “Black Joe” I know the answer. ...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2023/02/on-trail-of-idea.html

Sometimes, perfectly good words get overused and abused and stretched to the point that they become stupid. One such word that has been stirring my curmudgeonly coals of late is “journey.” ...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2023/01/really-stupid-words-chapter-21.html

Like many of you, I suspect, I recently spent ten days in rodeo heaven watching the National Finals Rodeo. This year, the festivities included a new event: the naming of “NFR Icons,” hono...

http://writerrodmiller.blogspot.com/2022/12/nfr-icons.html