ken farmer-storyteller. A big thanks to Authors Lounge for asking me to post this article. Ken Farmer – Named to the Hall of Fame for Western Writers. “Ken Farmer’s dialogue flows like a beautiful western river…it’s the gold standard.” – Carole Beers I was born in Kilgore, Texas in 1941.
Graduated college with a BS degree from Stephen F. Austin State University – 1963 Attending there on a full football scholarship.I raised registered Beefmaster cattle and Quarter horses at my ranch in East Texas for over 20 years. I didn’t write my first novel until I was age 69 (2010), after retiring from 45 years as a professional film and TV actor. I often wonder what the hell took me so long.
At age 82, I released novel #51 in July of 2023…TOBYMAN, book #3 of the Best Selling COLTRANE series. I’m currently working on #52…BACK, book #4 of the Coltrane series. My favorite series, so far, is the THREE CREEKS series—a late ‘40s and early ‘50s Southern Noir Murder Mystery series in the vein of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’, and ‘Catcher in the Rye’, and has won 5 ‘Best’ novel major awards, so far. I wrote my first novel with a friend, Buck Stienke, in 2010 after retiring from professional film/TV—a military action tome…
BLACK EAGLE FORCE – EYE OF THE STORM. I have written in several different genre, Military Action, Police Procedural, Sy/Fy, Southern Noir Mystery, and Western—all are tinged with everyday humor in addition to drama, pathos, some romance, mystery, twists, and always action—and all family friendly, no vulgarity, foul language or sex scenes.
Like most actors, I dabbled in writing screen/teleplays, so, moving into novels was not a great stretch. I am a ‘pantser’, meaning I don’t outline…It’s like Improv in acting. I take the four Ws – Who, What – Where – When, create a title, create my characters…and just start writing. I listen to what the characters say and write down what they say and do. It’s like watching a movie in my head. I used to say I was an author…now I just say, ‘I create illusions’. The title of my newest release, TOBYMAN, is actually an archaic English and Colonial word meaning ‘highwayman’ or ‘robber on horseback’.
A black-clad, masked and caped, mounted highwayman is wantonly terrorizing—robbing-killing—the travelers passing through the Arbuckle Mountains of the Chickasaw Nation…now central-southern Oklahoma. Characters from previous novels, Deputy US Marshal D. U. Bone, known to all as just, ‘Bone’, and his wife, Loraine, also a Deputy US Marshal, team up with Alice Coltrane, daughter of Sheriff Jip Coltrane, and John Eagle—a twenty year old white man raised by the Comanche. The four are tasked to track down the marauder. They take with them a two-hundred pound, half-wolf – ‘Bear Dog’, and a half-grown, rare, snow-white Cougar, Tosa.
The group sets out to capture or kill the black-clad daemon, TOBYMAN. The primary protagonists, Bone and Loraine, are small Texas town detectives from 2014. They were accidentally transported to 1898 when they were caught in an ancient American Indian portal while taking refuge in a cave from a violent thunderstorm in North Texas. I like to write historical fiction novels with a touch of the unusual or sometimes supernatural. I’ve often included Sasquach (Big Foot), known as the Lofa to the Chickasaw, and Yé’iitsoh to the Navajo…and Skinwalkers, known as the Yenaaldooshii to the Navajo—and even an alien from a crashed spaceship near Aurora, Texas, April 17, 1897 (historical event). Some of my western novels include inter-dimensional travel and time-travel through ancient Native American portals. Not sure where the inspiration comes from for my stories…sometimes it’s actual historical events and sometimes from whole-cloth in my imagination.
I never ignore an impulse and the impulse for TOBYMAN fit perfectly as book #3 of my western series, COLTRANE. I try to keep all my books, ‘family friendly’…no vulgar language or sex scenes, but with a lot of action—people do get killed.
My favorite quotes that inspired me to become a writer are from Edgar Rice Burroughs, creator of the world famous Tarzan series and John Carter of Mars. He wrote 84 novels…including four excellent westerns, and sold over 53 million copies of his works world wide. – “I have been successful probably because I realized I knew nothing about writing and have merely tried to tell an interesting story entertainingly.” Also – “No fiction is worth reading except for entertainment. If it entertains and is clean, it is good literature, or its kind. If it forms the habit of reading, in people who might not read otherwise, it is the best literature.” Who or what is the black-caped TOBYMAN terrorizing the Arbuckle Mountains on his black stallion? Is he from this world or dimension? What is he really after? Why does the Anasazi princess, Dalia Marrh, from the 4th world, show up in the Arbuckles? Do our heroes succeed? Find out in…TOBYMAN.
Three Creeks – Best Mystery Award – 2020 & Chanticleer First Place Clue Award – 2020
Red Hill Road – Best Mystery Award – 2021
The Nations – Classic Western novel Winner – Laramie Award 2014
Haunted Falls – Historical Western novel – Winner – Laramie Award – 2013
Book Trailer – https://vimeo.com/109625264
http://tinyurl.com/KenFarmerAmazon
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/KenFarmerAuthor
Ken’s VO Demo:
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