For the Media

Wonder how a writer from Texas came to publish a novel about a Colorado coal war during the 100th-year anniversary of this nearly forgotten, but pivotal tragedy?

American lit and creative writing teacher Bob Reed stumbled on the deadliest and most costly labor dispute in American history by accident.  In 1983, thinking he'd write something about farming in eastern Colorado, where his father had been stationed during WW II, Bob ran across a brief encyclopedia reference to "the Ludlow Massacre." 

A massacre?  On the plains of Southeastern Colorado? 

Bob was hooked.  He drove to Trinidad, where he discovered the lips of the townspeople sealed as tightly as the mine entrances in the coal canyons.  References to coal mining in the area didn't exist, even in the town's museum.  Finally, a librarian in Trinidad's Carnegie Library directed Bob to microfiche containing local and national newspaper accounts of the tragedy.  He was on his way.

Bob's thirty-year journey through the fog of history results in The Red-Winged Blackbird, a book one coal miner's descendent described as the "go-to" book if you want to experience the epic clash between miners and coal companies. The success of Red-Wing led to the publication of two sequels: Between Daylight and Dark and Glitches.

Bob loves to talk about his work and is available for speaking engagements, readings and interviews.  His program includes readings, a Q & A session, book sales and signings.  He can also illustrate the historic events by sharing 30 vintage photographs that have been enlarged and annotated with quotes from The Red-Winged Blackbird.

Bob is also happy to speak to reading and writing groups via telephone or Skype

ABOUT BOB        

• Grand Prize Winner of 1984 Fort Worth Star-Telegram Poetry Contest.  Chosen from 1400 submissions.

• Contributor of 104 book reviews for Fort Worth Star-Telegram under editors Larry Swindell and Jeff Guinn.

• Guest “Community Columnist” by invitation for Fort Worth Star-Telegram (eight columns).

• 18-year career teaching creative writing, American literature and outdoor education at Paschal High School, Fort Worth, Texas.

• North Texas State University’s “Outstanding Alumnus for Contribution to Public Education,” 1985.

• Fort Worth ISD “Secondary English Teacher of the Year,” 1986.

• Sponsor of Paschal’s literary magazine The Vignette, consistently ranked “Outstanding” by the National Council of Teachers of English.

• First Place, Dallas-Ft. Worth Writers Group Poetry Contest, 1994.

• National Council of Teachers of English "National Center for Excellence:  Creative Writing, Sponsor," 1989.

• Selected as Paschal High School's "Favorite Teacher" by the senior class of 1985, as part of a week-long feature story on the high school conducted by Channel 4 Television news in Dallas.

• "Challenge Award" for Outstanding Service to Clients at the Ft. Worth ISD Outdoor Learning Center, Mid-South Association for Experiential Education, 1999.

 CONTACT INFORMATION

4556A C.R. 2011

Walnut Springs, Texas 76043

Tel. (254)797-0211

Website:  bobreed-glenrose.com

Facebook:  “Bob Reed’s novel The Red-Winged Blackbird”

Email: swreed2@yahoo.com

WHERE TO ACQUIR BOB’S NOVELS:

• Signed copies of all novels in the trilogy available from Bob Reed via email or phone message.     

• Paperbacks for all books in the trilogy available from Amazon.com.

• Kindle editions available at Amazon.com.

• Paperbacks for all novels in the trilogy available from Rhythm and Co. Bookstore; 101 Elm Street; Glen Rose, Texas 76043 (Phone: 254-269-0018) and from Storiebook Cafe; 502 Bernard Street; Glen Rose, Texas 76043 (Phone: 254-897-2665) .

Press Release

Debut Novel The Red-Winged Blackbird Recreates the Bloodiest and Most Costly Labor Dispute in American History‒the Colorado coal strike of 1913-14

New work chronicles a miner's journey toward self-awareness in the dangerous world of coal mining, union organizing and domestic warfare                                              

Glen Rose, Texas, September 4, 2013‒ When author Bob Reed began the research for his novel The Red-Winged Blackbird (www.bobreed-glenrose.com) in 1983, it never occurred to him that its publication date would coincide with the 100th anniversary of the events on which the story is based‒the Colorado coal strike of 1913 and its culmination in the 1914 battle that the New York Times dubbed “The Ludlow Massacre.”  Reed had intended to complete his novel years before, but fate would have otherwise.   Instead, the novel premieres as the state of Colorado and United Mine Workers prepare numerous events to commemorate the bloodiest, most costly labor dispute in American history.

The Red-Winged Blackbird is narrated by self-described coalass Alan Tanner, an eighteen-year-old kid, trying to make a living, take care of his family and have a little fun.  Alan often recalls the words of his father:  “The whole world operates on coal, boys.  Men kill for it.  That makes a miner pretty damn powerful.”  Powerful, yes.  But experience teaches the youngster that, in the converging worlds of mining, unionizing and warfare, a miner can also become a sitting duck.      

As the story unfolds, Alan evolves from an immature whore-mongering, whiskey guzzling, wage-slave into a wise and witty storyteller, chronicling the plight of coal miners caught in the crossfire between labor and management.  Years after Alan’s mine explodes, the stench of bloody carcasses plagues him.  His ambivalence toward the union lingers even as the UMW-organized workers risk a strike and war among miners, management and “the law” ensues.  Unable to escape battle, even as he remains skeptical of the union, the young miner ultimately arms himself and enters the fray.  After fending off machine gun and rifle fire all day and witnessing the deaths of friends and foes alike, the young miner watches helplessly as the tent homes of a thousand strikers erupt in flames.  It’s time for revenge.  

In reviewing Reed’s book, one Amazon reader writes:  “Author Bob Reed dramatizes the events with great effect. At times the novel took my breath away, made me laugh, touched me tenderly. It's an entertaining read, a glimpse at an important event in American history that virtually no one knows anything about.”  Another states:  “I have driven the stretch of interstate highway from Trinidad, Colorado to Walsenburg more times than I can count.  Before reading Bob Reed's novel, however, I really had no idea what coal-mining life in private mines, camps and towns in that area was like 100 years ago. The characters are so well defined, the dialogue so funny and rich, I was hooked early into the book.”  During the 100th-year commemoration weekend of the Ludlow Massacre,  one coal miner’s descendant stated that The Red-Winged Blackbird  should be the “go-to” book for those who want to experience what the strike and the war surrounding it were really like.

The author lives with his wife Sandra, their dog and cat in the Texas Hill Country, south of Glen Rose.   

The Red-Winged Blackbird can be purchased in paperback from createspace.com/3947028 ($15) and on Kindle at Amazon.com ($4.99).

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THE RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD

By Bob Reed

SAMPLE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS WITH ANSWERS

1.      It took you thirty years to publish this novel.  Why so long?  I write slowly.  I knew I had thirty years from the time I started until the prime marketing year of the centennial anniversary.   No need to get in a big hurry and make mistakes‒right?  Seriously:  I do write slowly.  It took seven years to complete the story the first time; then I spent five years trying to sell it in the conventional way‒querying agents and publishers.  I revised the book, still couldn’t sell it, then filed it away.  It remained in a drawer until I discovered publication-on-demand options in 2010.  At that point, I knew I wouldn’t just leave a stack of papers behind when I was gone; I could hold a real copy in my hands.  I had married an excellent editor who convinced me to start the novel at a different place in the story, made suggestions about scene creation and deletion and character development.  After another complete rewrite and editing nine proofs supplied by my printer, I published the book you hold in 2013.    

2.      The coal strike and “Ludlow Massacre” are fairly obscure events in Colorado history.  How did you find out about them?  I stumbled on the deadliest and most costly labor dispute in American history by accident.  Thinking I’d write something in 1983 about farming in eastern Colorado where my father had been stationed during WW II, I ran across a brief encyclopedia reference to the "the Ludlow Massacre."  A massacre?  On the plains of Southeastern Colorado?  I was intrigued.  I drove to Trinidad, where I discovered the lips of the townspeople sealed as tightly as the mine entrances in the coal canyons. References to coal mining in the area didn't exist, even in the town's museum.  Finally, a librarian in Trinidad's Carnegie Library directed me to microfiche containing local and national newspaper accounts of the tragedy.  I was on my way. 

3.      What were you trying to accomplish with this book?  Coal mining, the strike, the “massacre” and the ten-day war that follows are pivotal events‒turning points in American history‒as relevant today as they were in 1914.  When I first read an account of the “massacre” with troopers‒fresh from battle in the Philippines‒firing on women and children, I thought immediately of Vietnam and Kent State.  The more I researched and wrote, the more I saw parallels to the present.  The women’s rights movement, the struggles of labor vs. management, environmental degradation, martial vs. civilian brutality, gun violence, even the preoccupation with sex, drugs and wild music‒all converge at Ludlow.  I created a provincial, but opinionated, eye-witness and participant, surrounded him with the most arresting characters‒real and imagined‒and let this amazing story unfurl.  More than anything I wanted to feel‒and I wanted my readers to feel‒what it was like to survive a mine explosion, to be trapped in that burning colony, to fight at last for what my narrator believed in.  I think‒and my readers think‒I’ve done the story justice.     

4.      Where does the title come from and what does it mean in relation to the story?  The title comes from a song by Billy Edd Wheeler, former coal miner and current member of the Nashville Singer-Songwriter Hall of Fame.  The song was “Red-Winged Blackbird” and I first heard Judy Collins sing it on a concert album in 1963.  The song tells the story of a miner’s wife who’s lost her husband to the coal mine.  Every time she sees the ubiquitous bird‒with “a blood-red spot on its wing/and all the rest of him’s black as coal”‒she mourns her husband.  To me, the bird can be a harbinger of both good and ill.  Though the words “red-winged blackbird” are never uttered in the novel, symbolic red-wings abound, if you look for them. 

5.      Most of the books written about the strike are non-fiction.  Why did you choose fiction to tell this story?  I believe that well-researched and well-executed novels can be more compelling and, therefore, more instructive than meticulously-detailed and documented non-fiction.  Where non-fiction intentionally keeps a reader at arms-length for the sake of historical objectivity, fiction draws the reader in with its emotional concoction of unforgettable characters, vivid imagery and suspense.  When novelists get readers to laugh and cry with characters, when they drop readers smack in the middle of the action and force them to consider how they would react, they’re teaching a valuable history lesson while spinning an engrossing yarn.  Good examples of powerful “historical fiction” include Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Doctorow’s The March and Shaara’s The Killer Angels.  I’d love to see The Red-Winged Blackbird included in that list.

6.      In your opinion, was the pivotal event a battle or a massacre?  During this centennial year, a fierce and rancorous debate has flared concerning this question.  One published authority was called an idiot by a UMW official because the authority did not consider the event a massacre.  The author stated that he thought the intention to kill everyone and destroy everything in the colony (his definition of a massacre) was absent among most of the militia, guards and detectives.  Another author recently noted that what one calls the tragedy is not nearly as important as the fact that the colony, filled with women and children, endured machine gun and rifle fire for over ten hours, then was torched.  This authority upheld the belief, determined by a state-wide investigative commission in 1915, that the National Guard and the Baldwin detectives were out of control and were responsible for the deaths of over twenty colonists (11 children and two women smothered in a pit dug under one of the tents).  The NY Times coined the phrase “Ludlow Massacre” in 1914 and that epithet resonated.  I’m not sure we’d pay as much attention to the tragedy as we do if it weren’t called a massacre.  Since the militia and the Baldwin detectives, well aware that innocents were hiding in cellars dug beneath some of the tents, riddled the tents using machine guns, then burned the colony, I'd lean closer to calling it a "massacre" than a "battle".