Wild west with Rick Steber

Today we visited the great western author Rick Steber who has written more than 30 books. His numerous awards include the Western Writers of America Spur Award for Best Western Novel, Western Heritage Award, Benjamin Franklin Award, Mid-America Publishers Award, Oregon Library Association Award, Oregon Literary Arts Award, Independent Publishers Book Award, Indies Award for Excellence; and the USA Best Book Award. Three of his books have also been optioned to movie production companies.

In the morning he gave me a beautiful poem!

MARTINE

Music is there Hidden in wood Aching to come alive

In her lively hands Notes of another language emerge Making emotions hidden inside rise like a balloon

Wood resonates to a bow artfully dragged across strings And all the little people of the forest appear and stand in raucous wonder They form a circle, skip and leap, join hands, laugh and sing and dance gaily about

We had a little forest concert for some neighbours and went to see his office and store in the town of Prineville. Before we left Prineville we visited Ricks 94 year old mom and did a little spontaneous concert for her and the other elders at the Regency Village Retirement Home, a very enthusiastic, surprised and grateful little crowd.

I have barely started on one of Ricks books that he kindly gave us but I can already tell he really know how to write, and his knowledge of the history behind his work is amazingly wide. If you like real country and western literature I will recommend to visit his webpage to learn more about his work.