Our Friday Indie Q&A is with our 4th place Napkin Microfiction Contest award winning Author Ednor Therriault. He discusses his crime story inspiration around microfiction piece Sprinkles and shares with us sage advice as a multiple medium creative. Ednor is a talented and prolific nonfiction writer so if you’ve got an inkling that you’ll visit Montana one day you need to check out his 6 books – YES 6 – on the subject of our great state, its people, and attractions.
Donut Killer
Indie: Congratulations on your 4th place winning in our Napkin Microfiction Writing Contest with your story Sprinkles! Given the lightness of the title, but darkness of the story, what inspired you to write this winning piece of microfiction?
Ednor: Sprinkles is the intro from a longer crime fiction piece, “The Donut Killer,” I wrote one morning after I’d finished the initial draft of my first novel, Stealing Motown. I needed to step away from that project before I started the second draft, or even mapping out the second book in the series. I was on the road when the idea came to me as I drove past a few hotels along I-15 north of Salt Lake City.
I pictured a woman checking in alone after a long day on the road, and it just poured out from there. I banged out the first three scenes for this new story but hadn’t yet decided if I would expand them into chapters, or keep them a punchy two or three pages, a la James Patterson.
The scene described in Sprinkles touches on some pretty common fears people have—a stranger hiding in their hotel room, being shot by an unknown assailant, or worse, being shot by one you know! The donut thing, I thought it would be intriguing and funny. I read a ton of legal thrillers, police procedurals, and other crime fiction, and love it when the author finds a way to work some humor into the writing.
For the Love of Montana
Indie: You’re a nonfiction writer by trade- tell us about your other writing and what you’re currently working on.
Ednor: I lucked into my first book contract in 2008 when an acquisition editor from Globe Pequot had been following my humor blog on NewWest.net (written as Bob Wire) and offered me the chance to write Montana Curiosities, a mix of short-attention-span humor and journalism, a tailor-made blend of my skill set.
Once I demonstrated that I could hit a deadline and deliver a pretty clean manuscript, they started offering me other books. Myths and Legends of Yellowstone was a fun dive into the history of my favorite national park, and it led to Haunted Montana, a collection of ghost stories, and a couple revisions of Montana Off the Beaten Path, which was on its ninth edition. Four years ago I pitched Seven Montanas, which is a more thoughtful, grown-up version of Curiosities. They green-lighted it, and it came out in 2019. My first hardback!
Currently I’m researching my next book, Big Sky, Big Parks, a travel companion for people visiting both Yellowstone and Glacier Parks. It’s a mix of history, culture, travel tips, and little-known stories from the national parks. Also, I’m shining a big ol’ spotlight on what I call the “Montana swath,” that big hunk of western Montana people drive through between the parks. The book is saying, hey, take an extra day or two and check out all this cool stuff while you’re traveling between the parks. I’ve lived in Montana since 1993, and the more I see of it, the more deeply I fall in love with it. I just want to share the incredible beauty and amazing stories I keep finding.
Stealing Motown has gone through a round of queries to agents, and I’ve decided that it needs one more run through so I can pump up the character development. That will be my fifth draft. *sigh* I’m starting to feel like Donald Sutherland’s character in Animal House. Still, I do believe in this story and have never read anything quite like it.
Worming Humor
Indie: Sprinkles is chilling and vastly different from your nonfiction work. What did you learn about yourself while writing this piece?
Ednor: One thing I’ve come to accept is that humor is going to worm its way into every project. Whether it’s an overtly goofy approach like the humor articles I write twice a year for Mountain Outlaw magazine or long-form crime fiction like Stealing Motown, I have learned to get out of my own way and just let the laughs flow. Occasionally I’ll use humor to leaven a particularly heavy or gory scene or to illustrate a character’s sense of humor, but I’ll admit that sometimes I build a framework simply to include a joke I find especially funny. If I think it’s clever or funny, chances are many of the readers will too.
Content Creator = Meat Slicer
Indie: I know you are a creative in many mediums. I admire that greatly! Can you give us some sage advice about being a creator?
Ednor: While it’s true that I’m a creator, or creative, I bristle at the term “content creator.” That’s like calling a surgeon a “meat slicer.” It really sticks in my craw because it diminishes the value of the work we creative types pour our heart, soul, time and sweat into. Even the slickest, most tricked-out website will fall flat if it doesn’t feature engaging writing, elegant graphics and powerful imagery. Okay, end of rant.
I am also a graphic designer, an amateur photographer and working musician with five albums under my belt. My best advice, no matter what the medium, is this:
“Take the work seriously, but don’t take yourself too seriously. You’re not Hemingway, you’re not Carole King, you’re not Joyce Carol Oates. We already have those people. What we need is you. Your voice. Your ideas. Your unique take on life. It takes guts, but it is crucially important to be yourself.”
Ednor Therriault, Author, Musician, Creative
The best life advice I ever heard came from the musician John Mayer, and it totally feeds into my philosophy of creative pursuits:
“Know who you are and be who you are. To the hilt.”
John Mayer, Musician
Choice Human Beings
Indie: What is one BIG WIN that you’d like to share with us?
Ednor: When my son graduated from the University of Montana with a degree in theater arts a couple of years ago, I was proud not just for him, but for our family. I studied journalism and graphic design, but dropped out and started working. Hudson is the first male in my family to receive a college degree, and it was a vindication of sorts. He worked hard to earn it, but we also made sacrifices and provided support and encouragement in ways I never experienced when I was in school. Like my daughter Sophie, Hudson has grown up to be a choice human being, which is a huge win for me (and of course my wife Shannon) in the one area of life where I needed to get it right. Of course I’ve made a lot of mistakes and bonehead moves in my 61 years, but as far as raising kids, I feel like I earned a big, shiny W.
Indie: There are so many people who help us along our creative path. Who would you like to give a shoutout to?
Shoutout to the Breadwinner
Ednor: Shannon. No question. She is the primary breadwinner in our household, but she’s comfortable with bringing home most of the bacon while I pursue my creative endeavors, which, to be honest, usually don’t pay that well. It may come as a surprise to some, but there ain’t much money in being Bob Wire. She provides support in so many ways. Financial, of course, but she champions my work and encourages me to take creative risks. She’ll give an unvarnished, brutally honest opinion of a song or piece of writing whenever I ask. Sometimes when I don’t ask. She’s incredibly smart, and frequently comes up with feedback or ideas that just wouldn’t occur to me but are exactly what the work needs. She joins me on many research junkets and gigs, and loves driving Montana’s two-lane blacktops as much as I do. I couldn’t have hoped for a more perfect partner in life. I adore her and I admire her more than she’ll ever know.
Of course I do have a nice payday now and then, be it from designing a logo, writing a magazine story, playing music at a lucrative gig, or even signing a book contract every couple of years. There’s always the hope that lightning will strike and I’ll write a successful novel or one of my songs may get picked up by a movie or even cut by a major artist. It’s the dream we all share, right?
“Meanwhile, the house needs painting, the car needs a new transmission, and the water heater just died. The financial clouds are always gathering on the horizon, but we scribes keep at it, writing about the difficulties of adulting, the challenges of raising kids in an increasingly bizarre world, or even creating a bizarre world from our own imagination that we can populate with characters and stories of our own design in the hopes that someone, somewhere will read our stories and say, hey, that was pretty cool.”
Ednor Therriault, Author, Musician & Creative
Socially Speaking
My website, ednor.com, focuses mainly on my writing. I have a blog there, WriteOn!, that could use some attention. Most current news goes to my Facebook pages Ednor Writes, and Bob Wire Music. Twitter: @Bob_Wire and @EdnorWrites. I probably have an Instagram but I pretty much ignore it. I have dozens of videos on YouTube, on the channel ednor59.
I’m on the roster of speakers for Humanities Montana, and my program, Finding Montana, can be booked at HumanitiesMontana.org.
Bob Wire’s music can be found on Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora and all the streaming services. New music and downloads are also at Bob Wire Music on Bandcamp.
Most of my CDs are out of print but I’m slowly going through the process of updating the sound and reissuing them. The first one is Sentimental Breakdown, which originally came out in 2008. Contact bobwiremusic@gmail.com for a copy.
