Author Archives: Kevin Giles

Kevin S. Giles talks about nonfiction writing in ‘Eight Essential Secrets …’

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Cover of 'Eight Essential Secrets'

My guide to nonfiction writing is now available on Kindle.

By Kevin S. Giles

Reading about writing nonfiction isn’t the same as doing it yourself.

I learned that through trial and error.

Somewhere in the midst of writing “Jerry’s Riot: The True Story of Montana’s 1959 Prison Disturbance,” I decided that after I published, I would write a concise book to help writers avoid common pitfalls.

Some years went by. As I wrote and published “One Woman Against War: The Jeannette Rankin Story, I renewed my desire to help fellow writers launch their own nonfiction stories.

Finally, I got around to it.

My short book, Eight Essential Secrets for Beginning Nonfiction Writers, draws on my personal experience. It can be read in an hour or less. I didn’t want to encumber nonfiction writers with volumes of advice. Instead, I give them straightforward tips to put to work right away.

Successful nonfiction requires diligent research, a deep pool of accurate facts and a flair for storytelling. It also requires focus because success depends on the quality of the idea.

I spent a blur of evenings and weekends working on my nonfiction books. Sometimes I became discouraged at all that work ahead of me. In those moments I reminded myself that I had embarked on a long journey. Every few steps took me closer to the end.

Do you have what it takes to write nonfiction?

Are you curious, relentless, enduring and inspired? I’m betting so. None of us know until we try.

Find Kevin's books on Amazon (and leave a review, please!)

Western Montana native Kevin S. Giles wrote the popular prison nonfiction work Jerry’s Riot, the coming-of-age novel Summer of the Black Chevy, and a biography of Montana congresswoman Jeannette Rankin, One Woman Against War, which is an expanded version of his earlier work, “Flight of the Dove.” His new novel, Headline: FIRE! is the third in the Red Maguire series. Masks, Mayhem and Murder is the second. The first is “Mystery of the Purple Roses.” More information is available at https://kevinsgiles.com.

Montana memory: when a man, resembling a boy, arrived in our little town

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(I originally published a shorter version of this post in my monthly e-newsletter. If you wish to join my free mailing list, add your email address here.)

By Kevin S. Giles

When I was young I knew a man named Mickey. Despite his graying temples he was more of a boy like me. Mickey arrived in our hometown of Deer Lodge, Montana, in the summer. He became a conspicuous presence around town as he rode his bicycle everywhere, a thirty-something man pedaling with an oversized wire basket attached to the handlebars. The basket, he told me, was for running errands for the nuns at the Catholic Church.

Mickey came from the state school for the developmentally disabled at Boulder. My parents explained that a new law sent people who lived in institutions to towns and cities across Montana to live among us. I didn’t know much about such things at my tender age. However, I did come to know Mickey. When he saw me he smiled and shouted my name, showing the big gap between his top front teeth. “Kevvvvin!” he would sing, sincere in his enthusiasm.

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Memories of pre-wildfire Paradise and California psychic Harold Cameron

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Photo of Author Harold Cameron

I met Harold Cameron in Montana when I interviewed him for a news story about his new book, “Night Stalks the Mansion.” We subsequently wrote a book together, although it remains unpublished.

By Kevin S. Giles

Grim fire news of “Paradise lost” in California brought back memories of visits to the city when I was writing about a man’s psychic experiences.

Paradise was home to Harold Cameron, author of a curious ghostly memoir, Night Stalks the Mansion. The nonfiction book was a gripping tale of his family’s experience in a haunted house in Pennsylvania and his subsequent discovery of evidence of murder and suicide. As commonly reported in similar cases, earthbound spirits in Harold’s house perpetually re-enacted tragic decisions, their footsteps echoing night after night.

“It can happen to anyone,” Harold told me. “We are approaching a time when all mankind will have an awareness of an extra-terrestrial experience.”

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‘Pink Wave’ of 2018 started with the first woman, a Montanan, elected to Congress

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By Kevin S. Giles

(Details in this story come from my book, One Woman Against War: The Jeannette Rankin Story, which examines the life and times of a historical figure whose involvement in American politics spanned 60 years.)

What a difference a century (and two years) makes.

When Montana’s Jeannette Rankin became the first woman elected to Congress, she broke a gender barrier that had frustrated American women since before the Civil War.

History shows that Rankin’s remarkable election to the US House of Representatives in 1916 didn’t unleash an immediate flood of female candidates hoping to achieve the same thing. Through the 1920s, after the Nineteenth Amendment gave all American women the right to vote, relatively few women went to Congress. (Not until 1924 were indigenous people granted the right to vote.)

Now look, in 2018.

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My small town vs. all those big cities: Here’s one native Montanan’s point of view.

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Photo shows Japanese friends

When I attended a banquet in Japan, two of these young women came to me with a camera, gesturing they wanted their photo taken. Three more jumped into the picture seconds before it was taken. I think they liked that I am tall.

By Kevin S. Giles

I told someone the other day about visiting Tokyo-Yokohama, an imagination-stretching megalopolis of 38 million people. Riding a bus into the heart of Tokyo from Narita International Airport took three hours. It was after dark. Even in the night, young business types toting briefcases streamed down the sidewalks. That scene continued for most of my journey to a downtown hotel where I could extend my arms to reach both walls in my room. In a megalopolis, space is precious.

Raised a small-town Montanan, I never felt inclined to intentionally seek out big cities. I’ve seen my share, such as Chicago and Honolulu and Sydney. I’m probably a better man for it. A good life is one of resonance, particularly for writers. Fabled large cities bring perspective to our occupation of this good earth.

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Once upon a time somewhere on a Montana highway, eastbound

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Photo shows empty highway

On the road, you never know what’s over the next hill. Photo by Kevin S. Giles

By Kevin S. Giles

Only room left in town.

Door won’t latch, casing splintered, footprint on the door.

Ashtray overflowing beneath no smoking sign.

Motel promises local channel. Nothing but gray fuzz.

I go outside. Kitchen chair by the door is the old metal kind with chrome legs and padded seat. Suspiciously resembles furniture at the diner down the road. Had a burger there, two pickles and an onion slice. Ketchup if you ask. Not bad, considering.

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Visiting Gettysburg battlefields: A lingering sad tale of young men and war

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Photo shows Gettysburg battlefield

Here I am surveying the view from Little Round Top, scene of a spectacular countercharge by Union troops at Gettysburg. (Photo by Becky Giles)

By Kevin S. Giles

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
Old time is still a flying
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.

When visiting the battlefields at Gettysburg (and there are many), I looked across those hallowed grounds at the faces no longer there, trying to picture them as sons and brothers, more than armies.

Two of my great grandfathers fought with the Union at Gettysburg. Abner Skinner belonged to a Wisconsin infantry unit. William Boyle, who immigrated from Belfast, Ireland, fought with the US Volunteers from New York. I come from an old family on my mother’s side, stretched over decades as marriages and kids came late, which is why both great grandfathers died long before I was born.

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Saving historic buildings, in western Montana and everywhere, makes good sense

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Photo of Montana grade school

Central School, which opened in 1884, had 13 classrooms and commanded a large city block. It was closed and razed in the late 1960s because of concern that its cavernous central hallways and wood floors would feed a disastrous fire. Photo supplied by Dale Case.

By Kevin S. Giles

I am reminded lately of how the disappearance of old buildings changes the character of cities and countrysides in often undesirable fashion. Not everyone agrees, of course, that history-altering demolitions inflict harm. Some people don’t hold sentimental attachments to old buildings, seeing them as impractical barriers to progress.

Recently I wrote about the value of hometowns, particularly mine. Deer Lodge, Montana, is often cited as the first incorporated city in the state. Despite the losses of several notable buildings over the past five decades, Deer Lodge remains a western town. It traces its roots to the early mining and Civil War eras, still wearing its history well, with enough of the very old infrastructure left to impress on us how the past can survive the future.

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Most everyone has a hometown. Mine is Deer Lodge, Montana, still fresh in my mind

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Photo shows Deer Lodge, Montana

Deer Lodge once was a two-stoplight town. It’s a quieter, less-populated place now. The town lost 1,000 residents after the railroad pulled out. This view looks south toward the old prison, towers visible in the distance.

By Kevin S. Giles

I have memories of my father building a contraption that sprinkled used motor oil on the gravel road beside our house. He hitched it to his 1953 Chevy pickup, driving it back and forth to keep the dust down. Neighbors who wanted to help with this endeavor, which included everyone living in the four houses at the intersection of College Avenue and Claggett Street, stood on the

Photo shows digging basement

This photo from 1965 shows a conveyer belt hauling earth out of our expanding basement at the corner of College Avenue and Claggett Street in Deer Lodge.

contraption as it bounced along, turning faucet handles that released the oil. It seems gravity created the flow. Possibly it was something more ingenious than that, such as a pump, but time has blurred the details. Dad was blue collar to the core. His first love, I think, was tinkering with machinery. When he wasn’t working inside the walls of Montana State Prison, he was running machines in the detached garage behind our house. He rebuilt motors. He also owned at least a dozen machines for sharpening saws and blades. Often, he kept several running at once, a cacophony of grinding and screeching. Even today, I hear those ear-wrenching sounds.

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My brush in Montana with actors in a western movie, in six easy interviews

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By Kevin S. Giles

It was a big deal, interviewing those movie actors in person for the newspaper. Natalie Wood’s sister Lana? Wow. And Ben Johnson, winner of an Academy Award? Yes.

I was a young writer at the Helena Independent Record when American International filmed “Grayeagle” east of the city. Sensing an opportunity, I volunteered to write profiles of the top actors. Then the fun began.

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