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The Books That… (Part 1)
I’m boxing my books in preparation for upgrading the basement, currently home to a very large desk, two file cabinets, and fifteen book cases, not counting the three DIY cheapies. My library has grown, or rather gotten out of control, since we moved in over a decade ago. For a while, I was a book aggregator. I didn’t collect books so much as amass them in vain efforts to be a “completist.” To be fair, I’m the guilty party. Karen reads virtually every book she buys, while I too often buy them for the day I hope to read them. In the case of hundreds, it ain’t never gonna happen. I’ve tried to be a little more sensible in recent years, with mixed success.
We’re still buying books, but Karen has jumped with both eyes into the world of e-books. That makes shelving and now boxing easier. We’ve both been culling our physical collections. Countless readers have characterized their books as treasured friends or close family members. Parting with any of them puts a pit in your stomach, if not a hole in your heart. But we’ve donated or sold some 500 volumes over the past four years. Here again the Mrs. is leading the way while I try to keep pace.
Packing the books is slow going. That’s partly a function of trying to select and arrange, one box at a time, volumes that will form perfect cubes inside a box’s space. The seemingly endless dimensions of books complicate the task. The real work slow-downs are the product of memories and emotions triggered by lifting books off the shelves, gazing at their covers, and flipping the pages to remembered or random passages.
Two weeks ago, I counted 1,674 books on fifteen bookcases (one of them a monstrous eleven feet long) shelved in the basement office, with another 150 taking space on the two Kathy Ireland seven-footers on the main floor. These don’t include Karen’s collections (the family total is about 2500 volumes). They do reveal that my own tastes have been, within a narrow range, rather broad. There’s very little literary or genre fiction, only a smattering of science and technology, philosophy and religion, social sciences and language, and even less poetry and drama (aside from Shakespeare). I’ve spent a half century throwing my money at history and biography. Since early childhood, without a single significant gap in time, that is what I’ve read. And since my teens, that is what I’ve wanted to write.
I’ve filled and stacked some twenty boxes so far, mostly loaded with books on the American Civil War, World War II, historical true crime, and the popular performing arts of film, television, and music. A thousand-plus books await their turn in the journey from wood to cardboard. Books on American history from colonial times through the nation’s westward expansion, to the “groovy” and tumultuous Sixties and beyond. Books on European history from Homer and Thucydides to Thiers and Churchill. Others by favorite nineteenth century writers and books about books, language, writing, and publishing sneer at my so-far meager efforts to corral them. Each time I lift a stitched paper friend off an oak, pecan, or pressed wood shelf, I take a moment, and sometimes come to a dead halt, as I recall the book’s place in my life as a reader and writer.
Quite a few volumes represent steps forward (or sideways) for me, and occasionally turning points. These might be labeled “the books that….” The books that made me love history. Biography. Epic tales and intimate stories. The books that inspired me to write. To leave my comfort zone and jump headlong into people and places I knew nothing about. To write Salt Warriors and try my hand at a forgotten child kidnapping. They are the books that grabbed and shook me. I’ll tip my hat to them in coming posts.
The Capture of John Kinney
I’ve written a magazine article on the 1883 pursuit and capture of New Mexico’s “rustler king,” John Kinney. It has been accepted for publication in 2014. The article includes a newly discovered map hand drawn by the US Treasury Special Agent instrumental in Kinney’s capture. More information later.
2013 Tombstone Territory Rendezvous
This year’s Tombstone Territory Rendezvous, will be held in Tombstone, Arizona, naturally, from October 30 to November 1. You’ll find the link to the schedule of events and registration form at the bottom of this post. I’ll be speaking at 7pm on Thursday, October 31 on “The Cow-Boys versus the World,” an inquiry into the number of homicides occurring in SE Arizona Territory and SW New Mexico Territory during the years 1880-1882 that can be linked to the rustlers, bandits, and other ne’er do wells known to history as the Arizona Cow-Boys. Contrary to some historians’ judgments, the West was Wild, the homicide rate was high, and, in this time and place, the Cow-Boys had a lot to do with that. Come on down to Tombstone for this and other discussions, for field hikes to historical sites, author book signings, and a good time among Old West historians and buffs. See rendezvous schedule and registration form at http://www.thetombstoneclub.com/ttr2013/schedule/
Gang Warfare – Arizona Cow-Boy Style (1880)
Gang Warfare: Arizona Cow-Boy Style
In October, 1881, Tombstone diarist George Parsons described Curly Bill Brocius as “Arizona’s most famous outlaw at the present time.” Curly Bill inherited the dubious honor from Robert Martin, his companion in an attempted robbery in El Paso County in May, 1878. The holdup of an army ambulance went awry, leading to the pair’s arrest and conviction. The two avoided five years in the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville when they, along with several other prisoners in El Paso’s jail, escaped and high tailed it for Mexico just a few hundred yards away.
Martin and Curly Bill fled the calaboose in November, 1878. During the two years that followed, Robert Martin became the most wanted American outlaw in northern Mexico, a veritable bogeyman. Whether Mexican reports identified him correctly or simply assigned crimes to his name, à la Jesse James, the inevitable conclusion is that he was, by 1880, the most successful cross-border rustler along this section of the border. The repeated raids by Martin’s rustling gang were said by officials in Chihuahua to put entire towns at risk of total ruin.
North of the international border it was a different story. Although still a “bad character,” as one local newspaper described him, Bob Martin was assuming the guise of a respectable “settler,” a costume similar to that worn by Nick Hughes, the Clanton family, and other Arizona and New Mexico ranchers and butchers in league with the saddlers who rode the rustlers’ trails. Martin accreted a ranch near Cloverdale, New Mexico, a wife and child, and the appearance of putting down roots. North of the Mexican line, Martin gained little notoriety, but he continued to immerse himself in the criminal world of the rustlers who became known as the Cow-Boys.[1]
Martin was part of the scheme engineered by Pima County, Arizona Democratic Party leader William Oury, San Simon valley rancher Ike Clanton, and ne’er-do-well John Ringo, to subvert the Pima County election for sheriff in 1880. Old pal Curly Bill missed taking part in the political hijinks as he sat behind bars in the Pima County jail, awaiting trial for the murder of Fred White, Tombstone’s city marshal.
While Curly Bill faced the bars in his cell, Bob Martin faced the fact that not even rustlers were immune from rustling. In November, 1880 it was reported that “For some time past the settlers and ranchmen in the San Simon Valley…have been subjected to a regular course of theft.” Horses and mules were also reported stolen in southwest New Mexico. On the night of Monday, November 22, four men who, with a “good field glass,” had spied upon the San Simon ranch of “[George] Turner and [Henry?] Lindeman,”[2] made off with seven horses and mules. The rustlers, according to one report of what ensued, were “Stiles, Leonard and King; [with] the fourth being a stranger (possibly Bill Smith).” It is likely, based on their associations that the first two men were Luther King and Billy Leonard, two of the four whose later botched attempt to rob the stagecoach running from Tombstone to Benson, Arizona, inadvertently setting in motion events that led to the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. The third man was probably Martin “Bud” Stiles, a Lordsburg saloon keeper by trade, but a close associate of the Cow-Boys who attempted to steal the Pima County election. One report said that Smith’s first name was Bill. Historians have suggested that he was James Smith, a Texas hard case known also known as Bill Smith and, more colorfully, as “Six-Shooter Smith, but in reality John Henry Hankins.[3]
A posse of five or six “settlers,” including Martin and Turner, pursued the thieves and stolen property, some sixty miles to the Animas Mountains, near Cloverdale, New Mexico.[4] The posse caught up with and engaged the rustlers at a place called Downing’s ranch. Here either “a few shots were exchanged” or the battle raged “from daylight… until three.” The citizens may or may not have killed or wounded one or more rustlers. Whatever happened, the citizens did succeed in recapturing as many as twenty-two stolen animals, which they drove back toward Turner’s ranch, some twenty miles south of the San Simon rail station.[5]
Two of the “settlers,” Turner and Martin, apparently first delivered four stolen animals to a Mr. Fitzgerald in Shakespeare before returning to Arizona. The outlaws, identified as “the King gang,” dogged their trail. Along the way, in a pass through the Peloncillo Mountains (either Granite Gap or Stein’s Pass, accounts differ),[6] they ambushed Turner and Martin. The first round of shots killed the two ranchers’ horses, and the second put a bullet in Martin’s head, killing him instantly. Scampering away from the road, Turner concealed himself in the rocks. Spotting the outlaws’ horses, he opened fire in an attempt to improve his chances of escape. He may have killed one of his pursuers, but the return fire was too hot, with several shots whizzing through his clothing. Turner ran off, using the rocks for cover, and then, in darkness, walked ten miles to his ranch.[7]
The next morning, “an armed party of settlers” retrieved Martin’s body and buried it at Turner’s. Not long after, the same outlaws reportedly returned to Turner’s to steal stock, but were driven away. The ranchmen then countered with an attack on the gang’s hideout in the hills, but the rustlers were away. The ranchers began organizing “to better protect themselves.” On November 29, seven days after the original theft, Turner telegraphed Grant County Sheriff Harvey Whitehill that he and Martin had been waylaid and Martin killed. Turner begged the sheriff, “If possible send out four men to protect life and property. I will give $1,000 for the apprehension of these murderers.” That Turner would turn to Whitehill for protection is unsurprising in light of Whitehill’s reported association with Curly Bill.[8] Sheriff Whitehill dispatched Deputy Sheriff Dan Tucker across the line to the San Simon valley to find “these pets,” but no additional information on the killers ever came to light.[9]
The first reports from the Star and Citizen, both published in Tucson, depict a running battle between thieving “outlaws” and harried “ranchmen” or “settlers.” The Star’s suggestion that a “regular vendetta has been commenced in the San Simon valley and the end is not yet” hinted at a closer relationship between the parties than these first accounts describe. Later reports made it clear that the running battle was a squabble between men cut from the same cloth. The Star reported on December 1 that “The combatants are largely composed of men who left Lincoln county some 12 or 14 months ago under warm pressure.” The Citizen advised its readers three days later that the “dispute… over the ownership of some cattle” was a “war” among about “twenty of the Texas cowboys….”
In the first reports, the “man named Martin” is clearly identified as one of the settlers opposed to the stock thieves. He is one of the good guys. But the murdered man was indeed Bob Martin, the same man who once rode with Jessie Evans and Curly Bill and only recently preyed to disastrous effect on Mexican ranches. One Silver City newspaper, more informed than those in far off Tucson, accurately described Martin as “well known in Southern New Mexico, and… generally regarded as a bad character.”[10] His companion, George Turner, was one of those who, with Ringo, Ike Clanton, and Joe Hill, had recently treed Safford. Martin (Turner too) had adopted the veneer of respectability and may have intended to fully transition. He had not gone completely straight, but the family—he is one of the very few rustlers in the region known to have started one—indicates he may have had aspirations in that direction.
Cabinet level correspondence regarding Bob Martin’s depredations in Mexico continued for several months—as late as April 1881, in fact—but these letters all referred back to the Mexican complaints filed in the summer of 1880.[11] No fresh grievances were filed. The outlaw leader who caused great tension along the international border simply disappears as an issue between the two governments.
After Martin’s death, no single criminal completely inherited Martin’s dreaded mantle inside Mexico. Nevertheless, the hydra-headed Cow-Boys continued to steal Mexican livestock by the thousands, prompting renewed Mexican calls for American government action. As the territorial borderlands became more and more populated, the rustlers became more enmeshed in the economic, social, and even political lives of U.S. towns and ordinary citizens, bringing increasing and unwanted attention to themselves. Pandemic crime along the border in Martin’s heyday benefited from deep shadows, pervasive corruption, and public acceptance. All three conditions persisted after Bob Martin’s death, but at diminishing levels. By 1881, encroaching civilization, growing demands for protection, and the stepped up defenses of governments on both sides of the international line, placed the Arizona Cow-Boys under increasing stress. Martin was not the last Cow-Boy shot by his rustling associates. Jim Wallace attempted to kill a drunken Curly Bill in a Galeyville saloon. In a squabble over ranch land, Leonard and King, two of Martin’s killers, were themselves shot to death in June, 1881. Their murderers were the Heslet brothers, said by some to be former Cow-Boys trying to shed their shady past. The Heslets were quickly murdered by other Cow-Boys led by Leonard and King’s buddy, Jim Crane. By the end of 1881, more than two dozen Cow-Boys were laid to rest by lawmen, Mexican soldiers, lynch mobs, and each other. As Bob Martin discovered one dark night in the Peloncillo Mountains of New Mexico, the rustler’s lifestyle was no longer dangerous only for their innocent victims.[12]
[1] For Martin’s domestication, see testimony in the case of Paul v. Shibell, Arizona Historical Society.
[2] “Lindeman” is possibly Henry Linderman, later a Sulphur Springs rancher who died in 1887.
[3] For information on Six-Shooter Smith, see Bob Alexander, Desert Desperadoes: The Banditti of Southwestern New Mexico. See also Grant County Herald and Southwest, Silver City Mining Chronicle, December 2, 1880, and Paul v. Shibell, testimony of Martin S. Stiles.
[4] The other posse men were Colt, Raymond, Dominguez, and an unknown associate.
[5] Arizona Daily Star, November 27 and 29, 1880; Arizona Daily Citizen, December 7, 1880.
[6] Granite Gap lies west of Lordsburg on NM 80. (Take the Road Forks exit off I-10 and drive south 11 miles.) New Mexico 80 follows the trace of the Granite Gap-San Simon Cienega route, a stagecoach and wagon road that replaced the narrow pass at Steins Peak. A seemingly monotonous landscape along I-10 takes on new interest as the dramatic Chiricahua Mountains emerge to the west. The Chiricahua Apache once roamed these mountains. Granite Gap, first mined in 1879, became a prosperous mining district. The Great Depression ended large-scale mining. Beyond, the highways descends into a wide arid valley leading to Rodeo, historically an important livestock shipping point on the El Paso & SW Railway.
[7] Arizona Daily Star, November 29, 1880; Arizona Daily Citizen, December 7, 1880.
[8] Arizona Daily Citizen, December 7, 1880; Silver City Mining Chronicle, December 2, 1880. For the association of Whitehill and Brocius, see Alexander, Sheriff Harvey Whitehill, 123, citing the later memories of Whitehill’s son Wayne. In his unpublished manuscript, Cesar Brock, 120, Lou Blachly records Brock as stating that Curly Bill “worked for Harvey Whitehill.” This particular statement may hold a kernel of truth surrounded by the old timer’s otherwise considerable outlaw balderdash
[9] Silver City Mining Chronicle, December 2, 1880.
[10] Silver City Mining Chronicle, December 2, 1880.
[11] See Pope to Adjutant General, United States Army, January 15, 1881, citing communication from Col. Hatch in October 1880; M666, Roll 211, AGO, RG94, NARA; Secretary of State Evarts to Secretary of War Ramsay, February 2, 1881; Mr. M Letter of April 13, 1881 M. de Zamacona, Ambassador of Mexico to the United States, to James G. Blaine, Secretary of State, April 13, 1881 (M429, Roll 3); Blaine to Sec. Interior Samuel J. Kirkwood, April 19, 1881 (M429, Roll 3).
[12] Six-Shooter Smith supposedly died in a Texas gunfight in 1882, while Martin Stiles may have died of smallpox in 1882.
Home from the 2013 Arizona-New Mexico Joint History Conference
It’s good to be home. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed my week in New Mexico. The sun was out, and the air ranged from pleasantly cool to even more agreeably warm. I headed north from Las Cruces to Santa Fe in time to miss a heat wave. I likewise missed the wind and sandstorm that closed I-10 for 100 miles, as on that day I was tucked inside my hotel room, fully occupied preparing for giving the next day’s conference opening address.
The opening address, on New Mexico’s role in the El Paso Salt War of 1877, was well received. Curiously, only one hand went up for the Q&A, but when the session was over and nearly everyone left, at least a half dozen people stayed behind to ask questions. The one-on-one discussions were enjoyable, except that in a couple of cases I wondered, where were you with this wonderful info when I was writing the book? It’s always so, and we can hope for a 2nd edition, if the first ever sells out.
My second day began with a panel on rustling in the Twin Territories of New Mexico and Arizona roughly during the years 1878-1883. Together, the panel’s three talks presented a kaleidoscopic picture of the various roles played by Bob Palmquist of Tucson spoke about the lives and usually violent ends of the “Cow-Boys,” the often saddle-bound rustlers who made SE Arizona and SW New Mexico a paradise of crime, usually at the expense of ranchers in northern Chihuahua and Sonora, Mexico. Paul L. Johnson of New York, biographer of Frank and Tom McLaury, explained how these two brothers came to be associates and middle men for the worst criminals in the region, and how their logical-but-unwise choices led to their deaths at the hands of the Earps and Doc Holliday at the O.K. Corral in 1881. I focused on the criminal organizational skills and deeds of New Mexico’s John Kinney, who made the mistake of being so successful that government was forced to destroy his enterprise.
On Saturday, the third and last day of the conference, I took the role of “Judge Warren Bristol” in a mock trial, actually an imagined extradition hearing, in which El Paso County sought the extradition to Texas of New Mexicans John Kinney and Jesse Evans for their crimes during the Salt War. The ever-reliable Bob Palmquist kept us grounded in territorial law as he played District Attorney William Rynerson. Nancy Lewis Sosa of Tombstone was our Mrs. Salomé Telles, El Paso’s Keith Wilden was our handcuffed Jesse Evans, and New Mexico’s State Historian, Dr. Rick Hendricks, served as the “friend of the court” and Territorial Historian. But we were a half dozen witnesses short until Dawn Santiago of the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum saved my bacon, putting me in touch with Sherry White Mitchell, artistic director of Las Cruces’s own Flying Cloud Theater. Just 3 days before the “trial,” Flying Cloud breezed in with a remarkable a remarkable group of actors who stepped into the roles of Kinney, Colonel Hatch, sheriffs Kerber and Gonzales, and merchant Amelia Rohmann. Working without a script, very few props, and plenty of acting chops, the whole crew helped put on a dramatic, humorous, and historically plausible presentation of how such a hearing might have gone down. Boy was I relieved! Flying Cloud can be found at www.fcowt.com
I was so distracted by the preparation of these 3 presentations, that I saw little else during the conference, but I did catch a panel on the making of a documentary on Arizona’s controversial 1919 “Power shootout,” in which four men died and two went to prison for 40 years. The filmmaker is Cameron Trejo. Mr. Trejo has made films for National Geographic, PBS, and other channels. This is, I think, his first documentary. A trailer can be found at: http://www.camerontrejofilms.com/player.cfm?play=47
The conference organizers anticipated every one of my needs, the Las Cruces Convention Center was first rate, and the book sellers had plenty of space, as far as I could tell. Shelly Dudley of Guidon Books of Scottsdale, Arizona ran the author signings. She and Gordon Dudley corralled the folks who wanted to meet and chat with the author.
Then off to Santa Fe, stopping at the Albuquerque Hyatt Place, the quietest airport hotel I have ever stayed in. Did not hear a single jet all evening, night, and morning.
Found some great stuff on Kinney at the NM State Archives for an article in a trade magazine and the biography I am considering. Then a long drive back to El Paso, and a comfortable flight home, where my lawn is screaming for equal attention.
El Paso Salt War comes to Las Cruces NM on April 18
Less than one month until the New Mexico-Arizona Joint History Conference in Las Cruces, April 18-20. I have the honor of being the opening plenary session speaker. The topic? New Mexico and Arizona Territories involvement in the El Paso Salt War of 1877. Murderous politicians, Gilded Age hustlers, Texas Rangers good and bad, Buffalo Soldiers, a sheriff’s posse of outlaw deputies, and an army of Tejano “minute men” fighting for their rights as American citizens. Link to the program, with registration and hotel information here: http://arizonahistory.org/2013%20conv/HSNMLC13–WebProgramJan292013.pdf
2013 Arizona/New Mexico Joint History Conference
I have been given the honor of giving the opening plenary address at the upcoming 2013 Arizona/New Mexico Joint History Conference, to be held in Las Cruces, New Mexico (just north of El Paso, Texas). The conference dates are Thursday-Saturday, April 18-20, 2013. It will be a busy 3 days for me.
The plenary address is on Thursday evening. The topic is the El Paso Salt War. Texas history, right? Well, yes, but the conflict involved some notable and notorious New Mexicans, including A.J. Fountain, Dan Tucker and the “Silver City Volunteers,” killers and rustlers like John Kinney, Jessie Evans, and Jim McDaniels, Hatch’s 9th Cavalry, and others.
On Friday morning, April 19, I chair a panel on borderlands rustling during the 1870s and 1880s. Should be a good one. Arizona territorial historian Robert Palmquist will speak on the rise of the Arizona “Cow-Boys” during the pre-Earp period (1878-1880). Paul Johnson, author of the recently published “The McLaurys in Tombstone , Arizona: An O.K. Corral Obituary,” will explore the lives of two of the three men killed by the Earps and Holliday in the Old West’s most famous gunfight.
I will bring the focus back to New Mexico with my presentation on the capture of John Kinney by New Mexico’s territorial militia (with some previously unrecognized help from federal agents). Finally, on Saturday afternoon, April 20, I serve as “judge” in the latest “Justice Forum.” Each year, some notorious crime is “re-tried” and the question of guilt or innocence, of course, settled for all time. Last year, the murder charge against “Trunk Murderess” Winnie Ruth Judd was finally resolved. This year, New Mexicans who escaped trial for their alleged crimes in the 1877 Salt War will at last come before the bar of justice.
The conference program, still evolving, involves much more than who shot who in the outhouse (as my Irish mother likes to say). Take a look. Here is a link to the most recent version I can find, including conference program, registration, and hotel information: http://www.arizonahistory.org/2013%20conv/HSNMLC13–WebProgramJan292013.pdf
I am looking forward to renewing friendships and to meeting southwest historians whose books and articles line my shelves and file drawers. I hope to see you there.
painting by artist Bob Boze Bell in author’s collection
Tombstone Territorial Rendezvous
Interested in the Old West? In meeting dozens of fellow Old West buffs? In learning what really happened (or didn’t) in the Gunfight at the OK Corral? In learning about Doc Holliday’s youth in Georgia? In day trips to locate ghost towns, long lost rustler ranches, sites of stagecoach holdups, or the spot where Wyatt Earp did (or didn’t) kill Curly Bill? Have a taste for Byronic Heroes of the Old West? Interested in how facts become legends, and legends myth? Would you like to ask the historians, biographers, and researchers who continue to dig out the facts just what they’re working on next? Talk it up with writers and fellow buffs of both genders and all ages over a beer or Bourbon at the original Crystal Palace Saloon? Come to the next Tombstone Territorial Rendezvous in historic Tombstone, Arizona, beginning October 30, 2013. Here’s the link for the conference that just ended. http://thetombstoneclub.com/ttr2012/schedule/
Thinking about writing a history book?
THINKING OF WRITING YOUR FIRST HISTORY BOOK AND GETTING NEW YORK TO PUBLISH IT?
I published my first unpaid article in 1998, my first book, published by a university press, in 2008. For the second book, I hope to land a New York publisher. I’ve not chosen the easiest path. Publishers prefer a trade-publishing record. I’ve been told, and I’ve no reason to doubt it, that a magazine article in your field yields more respect in New York than a university book. This is probably because of the earned reputation of academic historians writing inaccessible, thesis-driven history for one another, instead well-told, character-driven stories for the general public.
For those budding grassroots historians looking to make the leap, it can be done. You only need a good story, the ability to tell it well, and a marketing “platform” to make you and your book more visible than the millions of other books competing for the reader’s dollar. I’ll talk about platforms in a later post. Assuming you have the story, the skill, and the platform, you still need to know the process. There is an entire industry devoted to telling you what that process is and guiding you through it. Unfortunately, the information out there generally targets the mass of would-be published authors, and, for the most part, they write fiction (especially genre fiction), memoirs, and how-to books. For the most part, they don’t write history. This little essay is for those of you who do and are interested in making the leap to New York.
I entered what was, for me, uncharted territory the day I decided to try to get a New York publisher for my second book. The first, Salt Warriors: Insurgency on the Rio Grande, was published by an excellent academic press, Texas A&M University Press. Of course, the process of signing with a university publisher is pretty straightforward. A book proposal goes directly to the publisher who decides yay or nay. The back end has the complicating factor of getting a university committee to buy off, but the front end is pretty streamlined.
Selling New York on your book idea is a much more difficult task, one that can be likened to threading a series of needles featuring progressively smaller eyes. First, you need a literary agent, and not just any agent, but one who is looking to sign books like the one you are writing. A good place to start looking is the Writer’s Digest Guide to Literary Agents, updated annually. Or just “Google” or “Bing” to find an agent who represents history, preferably of the sort you are writing.
Once you identify an agent, determine if they are looking for new clients. Their website will state whether they are accepting queries, the one-page sales pitch that is the attention-getting vehicle in the world of nonfiction. Better still, try to meet the agents you are interested in at writer’s conferences or similar venues. If they like your “elevator pitch” or your query letter, they will ask you to send a book proposal and sample chapters. If they like that, they may want to sign you. If you and your book and the agent are a good match, then they have the tough job of selling your book to a publisher.
I won’t describe the query letter or nonfiction book proposal here. I can tell you there are rules to writing the query letter and the book proposal. Very few queries receive a positive response. Depending on the agent, it might be 1-2% or as much as 10%, maybe more. With luck, the agent you’d like to approach will describe what they want on that website. If not, get a sense of what is needed by researching a host of websites of agents handling your type of book. I will say that there are quite a few books in the marketplace on writing query letters and nonfiction book proposals, but most of the spilled ink is devoted to fiction, memoir, and prescriptive nonfiction—how-to books: “The 7 Ways to Avoid Being Skinned By Your Cat,” “The Nine Secrets of (We Can’t Tell You),” and similar titles. The two books in print (both written by literary agents) that I’ve found most useful are:
• Thinking Like Your Editor: How to Write Great Serious Nonfiction and Get It Published, by Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato. This 2002 books really needs a new edition, given the changes in the industry. It remains an excellent resource on putting some story features into your book. Especially useful if you want to go with an academic press.
• The Elements of Narrative Nonfiction: How to Write and Sell the Novel of True Events, by Peter Rubie (2006).
I relied mainly on Rabiner to write the Salt Warriors proposal and to improve the book. I’ve found Rubie more useful to crafting the proposal for the FBI book.
Both Rabiner and Rubie stress the importance of story. In this marketplace, it is not enough to recite a chain of facts. If you want to sell your book, use those facts to create characters we care about with stories that interest us. Publishers know such books have a better chance of finding readers and holding their attention. I have in my hand a groundbreaking little book on one of the most notorious desperadoes in early Arizona history. Every important fact known about the subject at the time of writing is right there, logically presented, and argued persuasively for some, not for others. What the author missed is a sense of the man. He should be a protagonist who makes something happen, who other characters react to. He should leap off the page. He does not. Write a story, breathe some life, if you can.
A word about “nonfiction.” There are many agents who represent works of nonfiction, but most of that appears to be prescriptive nonfiction. Why? Because it accounts for a bigger share of the market than does history. Much bigger. Make sure the literary agent represents history or at least “narrative nonfiction.” A word of caution about the term “narrative nonfiction.” In many cases, what the agent might have in mind is not third party history but first party memoir. An easy way to tell is to see what books they have represented and sold.
Here are links explaining what some literary agents are looking for in a nonfiction book proposal, starting with Peter Rubie. Again, if you want to approach a particular literary agent, follow that agent’s guidelines. If they don’t specify, immerse yourself in these and others, find what makes the most sense for your project, and follow that:
http://www.prlit.com/bookproposal.htm
http://cascobayliteraryservices.com/basics.html
http://natashakern.com/submitting_nonfiction.htm
http://greenleafliteraryservices.com/book-proposals/sample-nonfiction-book-proposal/
http://wow-womenonwriting.com/15-FE-AnnetteFix.html
http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2007/02/how-to-write-nonfiction-book-proposal.html
http://www.netplaces.com/book-proposal/common-proposal-mistakes/too-much-information.htm
A final word. Recently I posted on Facebook that whoever invented the nonfiction book proposal should be consigned to the lowest level of Hell. I stand by that, but it is what it is. Follow the rules, create a perfect product (all agents agree on that) and have fun doing it!
A reading list for the well-read FBI G-man, 1936 (or so)
The early 20th century saw a rising tide of criticism against certain traditional methods used by police to catch killers and crooks, especially the too-easy reliance by unprofessional local law enforcers on unconstitutional and often barbaric third degree interrogations. In response, enlightened police administrators and policemen joined lawyers, scientists, and others in pushing for adoption of “scientific policing,” the contemporary term for what we now generically call CSI.
FBI histories and biographies of J. Edgar Hoover uniformly credit the Bureau’s longtime Director with an early and sustained commitment to “scientific policing.” In 1924, he established a nationwide fingerprint clearinghouse (the Fingerprint Division) to assist state and local police catch criminals who ranged across jurisdictional lines. Eight years later, he authorized Charles A. Appel to set up the Bureau’s first criminal forensics laboratory. While scientific expertise and the responsibility for making fingerprint and forensic determinations resided at FBI headquarters (the so-called “Seat of Government”), Hoover intended that his special agents in the field stay current with the latest advances in scientific policing. He assured this through appropriate new agent and refresher training courses. Beyond this, Hoover “strongly encouraged” the Special Agents in Charge (SACs) of the various field offices to subscribe to a new forensics periodical, American Journal of Police Science. Articles discussing the FBI’s own criminological efforts under the names of Hoover, other executives, and SACs appeared in various legal and other journals.
Although Hoover’s commitment to scientific criminology was genuine, his public opposition to the third degree was on occasion more a matter of lip service. His policy appears to have been to avoid the third degree, except when its use appeared essential to solving a high priority crime, such as the Kansas City Massacre or the kidnapping of June Robles. In these instances, agents carried out illegal interrogations in circumstances likely to remain secret and deniable.
The bibliography below includes a sample of articles and books available to FBI “G-men” in the mid-1930s on scientific policing and third degree topics, as well as articles published under FBI authorship and related publications intended for the general public.
Books
Chafee Jr., Zachariah, Pollak, Walter H., and Stern, Carl S., The Third Degree. New York: Arno Press & The New York Times, 1969 (reprint of National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, Report on Lawlessness in Law Enforcement, Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1931).
Cooke, T.G., Fingerprints – Secret Service Crime Detection. Chicago: Fingerprint Publishing Association, 1930.
Cooper, Courtney Riley, Ten Thousand Public Enemies: An Inside View of the Underworld. Boston, Little, Brown, and Co., 1935.
Culver, Dorothy Campbell, comp., Bibliography of Crime and Criminal Justice, 1927-1931. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1934 (reprinted by Patterson Smith, 1969).
—–, Bibliography of Crime and Criminal Justice, 1932-37. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1939 (reprinted by Patterson Smith, 1969).
Lavine, Emanuel H., The Third Degree: A Detailed and Appalling Exposé of Police Brutality. New York: Vanguard Press, 1930.
May, Luke S., Crime’s Nemesis. Landisville PA: Coachwhip Publications, 2011 (first published 1936).
Millspaugh, Arthur C., Crime Control by the National Government. New York: Da Capo Press, 1972 (reprint of 1937 Brookings Institution edition).
Osborn, Albert S., Questioned Documents, Second Edition. Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1929.
Sullivan, Edward Dean, The Snatch Racket. New York: Vanguard Press, 1932.
Articles (many of these are available at www.Heinonline.org)
K. A. Aickin, “Kidnapping at Common Law,” 1 Res Judicatae 130 (1935-1936).
Herman C. Beyle and Spencer D. Parratt, “Measuring the Severity of the Third Degree,” 24 Am. Inst. Crim L. & Criminology 485 (1933-1934).
Horace L. Bomar, Jr., “The Lindbergh Law,” 1 Law & Contemp. Probs. 435 (1933-1934).
James P. Burke, “The Argot of the Racketeers,” The American Journal of Police Science (AJPS), Vol. 2, No. 5 (Sep. – Oct., 1931), pp. 419-427.
Edgar W. Camp, et al, “Report of Committee on Lawless Enforcement of Law, American Journal of Police Science (AJPS), 1:6:575 (1930).
Joseph P. Chamberlain, “Criminal Statutes for 1932,” 19 A.B.A. Journal, 181-185 (1933).
Joseph P. Chamberlain, “Criminal Statutes for 1933,” 20 A.B.A. J., 219-220 (1934).
E.P. Coffey, “The Importance of Scientific Analysis of Evidence in the Prosecution of Crime,” 11 Ind. L.J. 105 (1935-1936).
FBI, Uniform Crime Reports (annual).
Hugh A. Fisher and Matthew F. McGuire, “Kidnapping and the So-called Lindbergh Law,” 12 N.Y.U. L.Q. Review 646 (1934-1935).
Joseph L. Holmes, “Crime and the Press,” 20 Am. Inst. Crim. L. & Criminology 6 and 246 (1929-1930).
J(ohn) Edgar Hoover, “Local Law Enforcement in Relation to National Crime, Address of J. Edgar Hoover… before the Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association of Oklahoma, at Tulsa, Oklahoma, January 13, 1936,” 13 Dicta 141 (1935-1936).
—-, “Scientific Methods of Criminal Detection in the Judicial Process, 4 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1 1935-1936.
—-, “Some Legal Aspects of Interstate Crime,” 21 Minn. L. Rev. 229 (1936-1937).
—-, “The Work of the Division of Investigation, United States Department of Justice,” Tenn. L. Rev., XII:3, 149-157 (April 1935).
—-, “Science in Law Enforcement,” 15 Neb. L. Bull. 219-226 (1936-1937).
Fred E. Inbau, “Scientific Evidence in Criminal Cases: Part II: Methods of Detecting Deception,” 24 Am. Inst. Crim. L. & Criminology, 1140-1158 (1933-1934).
—-, “Scientific Evidence in Criminal Cases: III: Finger-Prints and Palm Prints,” 25 Am. Inst. Crim. L. & Criminology, 500-516 (1934-1935).
—–, “Technique in Tracing the Lindbergh Kidnaping Ladder,” 27 Am. Inst. Crim. L. & Criminology, 712 (1936-1937).
Edwin R. Keedy, “The Third Degree and Legal Interrogation of Suspects,” 85 U. Pa. L. Rev. 761 (1936-1937).
Harold Nathan, “The Ideal Law Enforcement Officer and the Ideal Law Enforcement Organization,” Address given to the Pacific Coast Institute of Law and Administration of Justice, September, 1934, 14 Or. L. Rev., 327 (1934-1935).
Albert S. Osborn, “Progress in Proof of Handwriting Documents,” 24 Am. Inst. L. & Criminology 118 (1933-1934).
—-, “The Layman Looks at the Law in Many Courts,” 25 Am. Inst. L. & Criminology 428 (1934-1935).
—-, “Suspected Document Diagnosis Hospital,” 27 Am. Inst. L. & Criminology 442 (1936-1937).
“Police Science Notes: Federal Technical Laboratory,” 25 Inst. Crim. L. & Criminology 171 (1934-1935).
H.H. Reinecke, “Ways in Which It Is Possible for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to Assist State Law Enforcement Officers,” 11 Ind. LJ 41 (1935-1936).
James Clark Sellers, “The Handwriting Evidence Against Hauptmann,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1931-1951), Vol. 27, No. 6 (Mar. – Apr., 1937), pp. 874-886.
—-, “Science and Advancements in the Examination of Questioned Documents,” AJPS, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Mar. – Apr., 1932), pp. 110-123.
Will Shafroth, ed., “Seek Facts on Criminal Law from the Bar,” 20 A.B.A.J., 37-39 (1934)
Will Shafroth, ed., “Criminal Law Enforcement in Our Cities, 20 A.B.A.J., 532-534 (1934)
John Barker Waite, “Report on Lawlessness in Law Enforcement,” 30 Mich. L. Rev. 54 1931-1932.
C. Ives Waldo Jr., “Recent Criminal Cases,” 26 Am Inst. Crim L. & Criminology 762 (1935-1936).
A.F. Wilco, “America’s ‘G-Men,’” 2 Metropolitan Police C.J. 51 ((1936).
Leon R. Yankwich, “The Lawless Enforcement of Law,” 9 S. Cal L. Rev. 14 (1935-1936).
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