“Welcome back, Pal. I’d love ta hear ‘bout yer vacation but we gotta saddle up fer the Saddle Up Saloon agin. Though it seems like ya don’t really want me aroun’ fer this guest. Porque?”

“Porky? Yer one ta talk, Kid. But yeah, I got us a special guest, jist happens ta be a neighbor ta our writer. Knowin’ how D. Avery makes ya bristle like a porky-pine, I got some concerns ‘bout ya bein’ prickly. Jist let me take the lead with this innerview.”

“Hmmph. I kin be perfessional, Pal. Who’s comin’ by?”

“Here he is now. Howdy! Welcome ta the Saddle Up Saloon, Sean Prentiss!”

 “Hello, Pal. Kid. Thank you for having me.”

“Thanks fer comin’ by. Jist ta be clear, we are fictional characters, spun off a the Carrot Ranch weekly flash fiction challenges. But yer real. Do ya write fiction?”

“Pal, like a good ranch hand, I try to be versatile. While I can’t saddle a horse, I do try to write creative nonfiction, poetry, and fiction. The first two, those are where I really feel most comfortable. Maybe how you feel on a horse (or are you bigger into mutton busting?). As for fiction, it might be like riding a bull, for you. I hop on, hold on, and normally get tossed off. Sometimes, by the time I land in the dirt, I have a fictional story to publish.”

“D. Avery suggested thet yer book Finding Abbeyis perhaps about ‘more than the mystery of Edward Abbey’s burial site’; said thet it’s ‘an engaging examination of an unfolding life, with twists and turns that eventually circle back to a beginning, that lead a man home’.”

“Hmmph. Betcha wouldn’ta ended up where ya did had ya known D. Avery was also circlin’ back home.”

“Kid, D. Avery is a good reader. She’s right, Finding Abby is about the search for Edward Abby’s hidden desert grave, but it’s really about understanding what home is and how we can find it. That search for home led my wife and me to this beautiful spot we live. It’s called Turtle Cove. Your writer knows it well. We actually see her kayaking in the cove often. And, Kid, actually we just had D. Avery over this morning to show her what we think is a new beaver lodge. She’s one of the very best in our neighborhood.”

“Hmmph. Best what? That’s what I wanna know.”

 “Shush Kid. Sean, seems like ya been a lotta places. How important is place ta writin’ in any genre?”

“Pal, I’ve been lucky enough to live and work in 16 states and two countries, so I’ve seen a bunch of this big world of ours. What I’m learning is that knowing a lot of places, to me, is not as important as knowing one or two places really well. This is for writing and for life. So, for me, I want to know this spot right here. That means knowing my human and non-human neighbors, knowing the landscape, knowing that geology, knowing the history… I’m still studying, but it’s a lot of fun. Especially because studying normally means getting out on skis or a canoe and exploring. Often with D. Avery.”

“Now yer jist tryin’ ta git my goat.”

“Yup.”

“Shorty— think ya mighta met her— she prompts writers ta a flash fiction challenge ever week, but ever’one knows they kin write other then jist made up stories. We git poems, what they call at the Ranch BOTs, fiction based on true story, fairy tales, myths, an’ even historical essays. Long’s it’s ‘zactly 99 words folks go where the prompt leads. But yer kinda a expert in creative non-fiction— the ‘Fourth Genre’.  Kin ya tell us more ‘bout thet?”

“First off, I’m a big fan of writing prompts. And Shorty has some great ones. I like the short form so much, that I had some friends write a textbook on it. It’s called Short-Form Creative Writing. You can check it out here. You might dig it. But, the fourth genre, aka creative nonfiction, is my literary home. It is simply telling true and beautiful stories. Rather than inventing, we probe our memories or do research into others’ lives. So you could write about all the fun, crazy things that occur here at the Saddle Up Saloon. I bet you don’t have to make up too much here. There’s probably plenty of stories to go around.”

“Well, some strange shift ‘as happened. Reckon with writin’ they’s all kinds a overlap no matter the genre. Like yer ‘Science of Scene’ stuff would be a innerest ta any writer.”

“Probably. I recently gave a webinar on the topic, which you can view HERE. But the craft of creative writing, in any genre, might be like all the beers you have behind that bar of yours. Each one’s got its own flavor, but they’re all pretty much made the same way. For all creative writing, how I normally start is with the central question, which is the idea that I’m exploring. This works in a poem or story or an essay. Then we play around with character and dialogue and setting and scene. We use all of those to try and understand the human condition. That’s what storytelling is about. And maybe that’s what this saloon is all about, what being a barkeep is all about. It doesn’t matter what genre. Just like it doesn’t matter which one of those beers I grab. They’ll all have their own taste, but, in the end they are all beautiful beer.”

“Huh. Yer purty smart, ain’tcha? Like a perfessor.”

“He is a perfessor Kid.”

“Really? Like one a them addjunk perfessors?”

“Kid! Sean’s real deal. Teaches creative writing at a military college.”

“Cool. Shorty’s been gittin’ vets ta writin’. Sean gits ‘em writin’ a’forehand, when they’re in trainin’. Innerestin’.”

“Yep. Sean, is thet a requiremint fer the cadets? D’ya reckon thet writin’ is an important part a their preparation?”

“I love that Shorty is teaching vets to share their stories. Sharing our stories and exploring our stories can be so helpful for our veterans or for anyone who has experienced trauma. And that’s all of us. That’s life. As for teaching future soldiers, I remember one of my very first students at Norwich University, a nuclear engineer named Michael. He was in my first creative writing class. At his graduation, my wife asked him if he was going to keep writing. His response was, Of course. I’m going to be living on a submarine. How else will I make it? I’m excited about creative writing at Norwich. Almost every time we offer a creative writing class, it immediately fills up. The students seem to love those classes. But it’s not just the students who see a value. Our administration has been seeing more and more value to creative writing. This summer we worked hard to greatly increase our creative writing offerings on campus. And while they didn’t all work out, Norwich is definitely growing its creative writing. On campus, we have a writing minor, a literary journal for our students, a writing series, and a slew of other cool things.”

“Thet is pretty cool. Ya ever hear from thet young fella?”

“I haven’t heard from my submariner in the past year or so. But he normally pops up every year or so to tell me where he is or what he and his wife are up to. But I do hear from a slew of former creative writing students. They are starting photography companies, working in admissions at our college, working for a literary arts organization, creative writing editing, and technical writing.  Some are still publishing. And some are headed to grad school.”

“Heard tell writers are generally readers. What d’ya read, Sean?”

“Kid, I’m a big fan of reading regional work. so, when possible, I like to read a lot of Vermont-based work. One of my favorites from Vermont is David Budbill. He’s spectacular. Before moving here, I was becoming an expert on the Desert Southwest. Ed Abbey, Terry Tempest Williams, Doug Peacock, David Petersen, Everett Ruess, and the rest. But now, I’m reading a lot less than I used to. Much like you two, Kid and Pal, I’m wrangling. My wrangling is with my three-year-old. She’s as wild as a bucking bronco.”

“Good! Don’t never tame her too much. Ya been out west. Ever passed through Carrot Ranch?”

“I spent about 18 years out west. And I visited many, many saloons. I was younger then, less tied down. And I’m pretty sure I made it to the Carrot Ranch.  And the Saddle Up Saloon sure rings a bell. I think I was here back in 1997. I might have even been asked to leave. You two might remember better…”

“Cain’t say fer sure, not knowin’. Mebbe that’s where ya met Shorty, when you were out west. She’s a High Sierra buckaroo from way back.”

“Shorty… I did meet Charli Mills right here last summer when she and some other ranchers were at D. Avery’s place for the Vermont Writing Refuge. I sure hope to see her here again leading her workshops.”

“Yeah. We hope so too. Me an’ Kid, we’ve done okay, bein’ made up an’ all, but you real folks is gittin’ kinda itchy with all this remote virtual carryin’ on. Jist stay the course y’all.”

“Yup.”

“Yep. Hey, thanks, Sean Prentiss. I know yer busy teachin’ an’ writin’ an’ wranglin’ thet kid a yers, so we ‘preciate ya comin’ by the saloon an’ talkin’ writin’ with all our ranchers.”

“My pleasure! Thanks for the beer.”

Sean Prentiss is the award-winning author of Finding Abbey: the Search for Edward Abbey and His Hidden Desert Grave, which won the National Outdoor Book Award, Utah Book Award, and the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. He is also the author of Crosscut: Poems. He is the series editor for the Bloomsbury Writers Guide and Anthologies Series. Two books, Environmental and Nature Writing and Advanced Creative Nonfiction are written by Prentiss. Prentiss is co-editor of The Far Edges of the Fourth Genre: Explorations in Creative Nonfiction and co-editor of The Science of Story: The Brain Behind Creative Nonfiction. He and his family live on a small lake in northern Vermont. His next door neighbor is D. Avery, who feeds Sean’s daughter sour pickles and Sean beers. Sean serves as an associate professor at Norwich University and is a faculty member in the M.F.A. Writing and Publishing program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. 

If asked, Pal & Kid will deny that they spill from the pen of D. Avery. They claim to be free ranging characters who live and work at Carrot Ranch and now serve up something more or less fresh every Monday at the Saddle Up Saloon. If you or your characters are interested in saddling up for a wild ride as a saloon guest, contact them via averydede.1@gmail.com.