Here's another installment of profiles of the writers appearing at the Equality State Book Festival Sept. 18-20 in Casper:John Clayton's new 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. He moved from Massachusetts to Montana in 1990.
Clayton will speak on a bookfest panel on "Wyoming History" at 2:45 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 18 , at the Fort Caspar Museum and will sign books following the panel.
