By Kevin S. Giles
Somewhere into that alcohol-fueled book signing that evening, Pulitzer Prize winner A.B. Guthrie warned us to “get the hell out of newspapering” if we had any hope of becoming serious fiction writers.
The famous novelist, a slender man who I remember favored unfiltered cigarettes and straight whiskey that night, sat between two authors of far less repute at a table stacked with books. I was to his left admiring my new book, Flight of the Dove: The Story of Jeannette Rankin. To his right was Steve Smith with his fine new book about Smokejumper pilots, Fly the Biggest Piece Back.