Q & A with author Chris Enss and San Diego Writers Festival
SDWF: What inspired you to write No Place for a Woman: The Struggle for Suffrage in the Wild West?
CE: This year marks the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. The movement that started East of the Hudson was realized first West of the Mississippi. Women who dared to come West accomplished amazing feats women in the East could only dare to dream about. Westward women blazed a trail for all to follow. Their stories are inspiring and meant to be shared. That’s what I wanted to accomplish with No Place for a Woman.
SDWF: Tell us about Iron Ladies: Women Who Helped Build the American Railroad? Is there a release date set for the book?
CE: Iron Ladies will be released in October of this year and is the story of the amazing women who influenced the American Railroad. When the golden spike was nailed to the tracks in Promontory Point in Utah in 1869, many of the men on the scene made a point of mentioning that women had no hand in either surveying the land for the tracks or in laying those tracks. They dismissed women’s part in making the railroad a success. Iron Ladies highlights the stories of those females who transformed the railroad and advanced railroad travel. From the woman who invented the refrigerator boxcar to the woman who helped orchestrate the last train robbery in the United States, Iron Ladies calls attention to those fearless women who’s lives and careers were tied to the railroad.
SDWF: Which writers have influenced you most?
CE: Dorothy Johnson, she wrote The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, Sharyn McCrumb, (author of The Ballad of Frankie Silver), one of the finest story tellers in print today, and Elizabeth Bacon Custer, George Custer’s wife. She wrote three books about her life with the boy general and all were bestsellers.
SDWF: What’s the last great book/play/poem you read?
CE: A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella Bird
SDWF: If you could give a piece of advice to your younger self, what would it be?
CE: Learn as much as you can about promotions. As a working author you’re responsible for promoting your work – no one else – just you.
SDWF: What writing resources (in San Diego, if appropriate) have been most helpful to you?
CE: The Library of Congress. Not only have I spent months at the Washington location pouring over information about the first female Pinkerton detectives, but I utilize their website on a constant basis.
SDWF: Which of your life experiences have shaped you most as a writer?
CE: Being able to visit great Old West locations. It’s been important for me to see the spots I’m writing about. To spend time in Dodge City, Tombstone, Deadwood, Denver, Sacramento, etc. The western stories really come alive after seeing those historic locales for yourself.
SDWF: What was the first piece of writing you shared with someone else?
CE: I attended Cochise College in Sierra Vista, Arizona, and wrote a short story about my brother Scott. He was a little boy struggling with a terrible medical condition and I wrote about the trauma for the school magazine.
SDWF: Is there a line from your piece you’d be willing to share? (opening sentence(s) or something that gives flavor of the piece?)
CE: Sure. This is a bit about train robber Laura Bullion from the book Iron Ladies:
The Great Northern Railway Coast Flyer No. 3 pulled away from the train depot in Malta, Montana, at 11:45 P.M. on July 3, 1901. Malta was a typical cowtown with a broad, rutted lane of brown dust running between a double row of false-fronted, framed buildings. Horses, their tails swishing idly at buzzing flies, stood hipshot at the hitchracks that lined the front of every store. The Flyer was headed west to Wagner, Montana, a slightly bigger cowtown that greatly resembled Malta right down to the flies.[i]
Among the passengers traveling to Wagner was train robber Ben “Blackie” Kilpatrick. Kilpatrick was a member of outlaw Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch. Two additional Wild Bunch gang members were making the trip with Kilpatrick: Harvey “Kid Curry” Logan and O. C. Hanks. Thomas Jones, the train’s engineer, brought the vehicle to a sudden halt less than six miles east of Wagner. Logan had a revolver leveled at his head encouraging him to stop the train. The gunman had snuck aboard the tender car* and onto the engine cab. The Flyer’s fireman*, Mike O’Neill, was with the engineer when he was overtaken, and neither man dared move with a gun pointed at them.[ii]
Logan motioned for O’Neill to disembark the train and uncouple the baggage and express cars from the passenger cars. He reluctantly complied. While the engineer was following orders, a rancher named John Cunningham noticed the peculiar display and spurred his horse toward the scene for a better look. Recognizing the train was being robbed, he jerked his roan in the direction of Malta, and the animal started to run. Kilpatrick, who had jumped off the passenger car, shot at the rancher, knocking his horse out from under him. John Cunningham quickly picked himself up and began running in the direction of the cowtown. A few curious onlookers dared to lean their heads out the windows of the car to witness the action. Kilpatrick fired at them and warned them to remain in their seats. No one evinced a desire to disobey the order. A brakeman named Woodside and a traveling auditor refused to comply with the outlaw’s orders, and both were shot through the shoulder.[iii]
The three bandits made their way to the express car and demanded the mail clerk and express messenger guarding the cargo inside to step away from the safe.[iv]
[i] The Anaconda Standard, July 10, 1901, Spokane Chronicle, July 8, 1901, The Tacoma Times, September 2, 1913, Wild Bunch Women, pp. 77-80
[ii] The Tacoma Times, September 2, 1913, The Anaconda Standard, July 10, 1901
[iii] The Anaconda Standard, July 10, 1901, The Tacoma Times, September 2, 1913
[iv] The Tacoma Times, September 2, 1913
SDWF: Thanks, Chris.
Find out more about Chris using the following links:
https://www.facebook.com/chrisenss
Instagram: chrisenssauthor
