You said you have a new novel about to come out. What’s it about?

Struggling to act normal, Connor William Conroy, a farm boy just back from combat in the Southwest Pacific with shell shock, meets a girl. But he doesn’t remember how to behave—and then there are the flashbacks. Nightclub singer Bobbi Bowen joined the Women’s Army Corps because the nightclubs were cutting back on live entertainment and her band members were getting drafted. She’s building and repairing radios for B-24 Liberator bombers and singing in a nightclub when she’s off duty. And then, she meets Connor. Accustomed to not only noise, city lights, and glamour, she also knows poverty and despair. If Bobbi knows one thing for sure, it is that she doesn’t ever want to be hungry again. Connor’s tall, dark, and handsome. She thinks he’s The One, but can he make a decent living and does she dare give her heart to this dangerous man?

What is your interest in telling this story?

When I wrote my memoir, I saw a lot of making do and just plain unhappiness—dissatisfaction. I started writing this novel about the kind of stoicism and resiliency I saw in my parents, but that book grew into three. The first, published a couple of years ago, gave me a lot of characters and situations that allowed me to think about how things that happen to one generation carry over to following generations.  We know that occurs in a physical sense with cattle. Your treatment of a pregnant cow will affect not only her daughters, but also her granddaughters. In The Reluctant Canary Sings, I gave my main character parents so disconnected that they barely functioned. Then I threw in a bunch of horrors so the daughter couldn’t catch a breath.

In the second book, the one I’m releasing now, I wanted to start out with a generation that had fairly easy times as children. I wanted to think about how that positive experience might play out for their son (my main character) and daughter, when life became frightening and horrifying. Would a positive background play forward?

I’ve described my dad as an abiding presence of absence. That is, he was always physically there and available, but some part of his attention always seem distant. So how did that happen? Dad died when I was pretty young so I was on my own to figure out how the Great Depression and World War II altered the trajectory of his life. He couldn’t tell me, so I had to do a lot of research and use a lot of imagination

How did you prepare yourself to tell it?

Researching my memoir provided a core. I located information about the unit my father served with in Panama and New Guinea. I learned they came mostly from Arizona and represented twenty-two tribes, many Hispanics, and some white guys.  I had a couple of memoirs from that unit and I grew to like their diversity and the “special” treatment they got in the Army. They seemed more interesting to me than a platoon of generic soldiers.

I watched the mini-series The Pacific several times to get an idea of the sights and sounds in Southwest Pacific environment.  I also used the memoirs I mentioned, the resources of the Center for Military History, things I overheard my dad saying, and my own imagination.

I’ve done a lot of historical research for NEBRASKAland magazine, including a military history of Nebraska I was researching and writing when I left the Game and Parks Commission. I have both Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in journalism, both of which required a large component of research. My MA in creative writing gave me some new ways to use what I learned.

You mentioned three books. Is there another one coming?

Yes. I’m releasing it November 1. The title is Gravy and provided me an opportunity to put all the above-mentioned characters together to see what might happen. I wanted to think about how they might support each other or tear each other apart because of what they’ve been through, what they’re going through, and where they came from—that generational programming.

Do you do any writing besides books?

I write an essay occasionally. I have a few short stories published in literary journals and anthologies, a poem or two.

Is anything in the works after you finish the trilogy?

My friends are asking me to revisit the sister of my main character in See Willy. She spent the war in Paris, then Vichy, then in Germany as a prisoner of war. She was pretty important in See Willy, appearing often in letters between the two. I’m currently researching the possibilities she presents.

I have a couple of short-story characters I’d like to revisit.  There’s a female truck driver who has some potential for a longer treatment and a woman who checks herself into an inpatient mental institution to escape an abusive husband. I’d like to speculate about how that evolved.

I also have three short stories about an abusive marriage, one in the wife’s point of view, one in the small child’s, and one in the husband’s. That might turn into a novella when I have time to rewrite, and revise, and fold them together.

When did you realize you wanted to be a writer?

You know, I don’t remember when I didn’t. I’d been scribbling for a while when Denny Sack died. He was a year ahead of me in high school. He was out by himself baling hay when the machine clogged. No way to know if he shut off the power take-off and the tractor vibration re-engaged it or if he just forgot. Anyway, he reached in to clear the clog and the belts grabbed his arm and stripped off the flesh. He bled to death.

That’s when I wrote my first poem . . . not about the accident, but about someone dying so young and all the living he’d miss.

Do you still have it?

No. I have some really early stuff, like early 20s, but not that far back. Anyway, Mom had a hissy fit because one of the things I thought Denny would miss is sex and she thought it sounded like I wrote from experience.