Meet The Authors

John Clayton

info@johnclaytonbooks.com

http://www.johnclaytonbooks.com/

John Clayton's book, The Cowboy Girl, is a biography of the Montana/Wyoming novelist, journalist, and homesteader Caroline Lockhart. "Expertly researched and wonderfully written," writes Mark Spragg, author of Where Rivers Change Direction, "this biography of Lockhart expands the genre to a meditation on frontier, feminism, and the vagaries of literary hubris. Clayton has rendered a riveting portrait of a woman both troubled and brave, a character caught up in the fiction of her own life." The book relies on archival materials not available to Lockhart's previous biographers.

Clayton lives in Red Lodge, Montana, with his family. His articles appear regularly in the Montana Quarterly, Horizon Air, and dozens of regional newspapers through the Writers on the Range syndicate. And in the business world, he ghost writes white papers, case studies, newsletter articles, and online help files for several leading information and high-tech companies. John especially enjoys bringing his fascination with narrative structure to the communication needs of business executives.

Previously, John wrote the lifestyle advice book Small Town Bound (Career Press, 1990) and has contributed to several other books. He has taught at Rocky Mountain College and is on the advisory board for the Montana Center for the Book. In 2008, Red Lodge (Images of America), (Arcadia Press) was published. He moved from Massachusetts to Montana in 1990.

John appears at Casper College a few days prior to the book festival on Monday, Sept. 20th courtesy of the Gender Studies program and a Humanties Council grant. In his presentation, "Happily Ever Aftering on a 1920s Cattle Ranch", John will discuss the story of Caroline Lockhart. A bestselling Wyoming novelist of the times, Carolyn decided to retire to her very own homestead, setting in motion a conflict: The happy endings of her romantic fictions and the realities of a single woman running a drought-ridden ranch.