I’m from a small town in Southeastern Oklahoma called Antlers. My literary hero Larry McMurtry said that writers carry a particular sense of place with them throughout their lives, a place they tend to set their stories. In Last Picture Show, the place was “Anarene,” an actual ghost town in Archer County, Texas. I call my place “Johns Valley” in the Elinor & Dot Library Mysteries and “Roebuck” in Oklahoma Air. My sister mentally drives Antlers’ streets with Elinor and pictures the exact house where Dot lives. Several readers claim to visualize the library at the end of High Street next door to the police station. In the real town, the new library and police station are indeed next door to one another but do not share a wall as I have them do. Writers never let truth get in the way of a good story.
A brand-new edition of Oklahoma Air is available in paperback and eBook.
