Alex Draven recently interviewed James Buchanan.

AD : The setting of this story is wonderfully rich - did you do a lot of research, or is it a culture you know first hand? What about the landscape?

JB : I grew up in the Southwest ­ and there is a very definite culture to the region as a whole. Very self sufficient and friendly. I remember as a kid, leaving the house at 7 in the morning and being out riding horses in the bosque until 7 at night. The concept of space and distance and
travel is very different living in places like that. I still think that a two hour drive is no big deal ­ we did that just to go hang at the mall as teenagers. And I went to college on the five year plan at New Mexico State. So the campus, Las Cruses and the feel of the land all that is in my memories.

The Navajo not a culture I've had direct experience with, although I had acquaintances who were Navajo, Apache and Pueblo. So True and Seth are loosely based on a variety of people I knew throughout my time there. How they viewed the views that outsiders held of them rubbed off into my memories. For specific details, I had to rely on my research skills, culling through interviews of Gays and Lesbians at the Navajo Outreach, monographs on Witchcraft and the like, learning some of the language construction.

And personally, I like stories that go deep and use a lot of symbolism. I try and write those things into my work. They don¹t need to be obvious but they keep a certain taste in your mouth as you read. Maybe one day I¹ll run a contest on who can tell me just which Yei True and Seth appear as in one point of the story.

AD : What's the most interesting fragment you've ever dug up? Take that as literally as you like :)

JB : The WeHopi comment True makes. I was reading through the GLBT Times of Phoenix and someone used that phrase in an interview. I just about died laughing.

AD : You obviously know your mythology, and it's worked into the warp and weft of this story, as well as in the content. Do you have a favorite fireside story?

JB : Yeah, I remember my Great Grandmother and sitting in her kitchen while she was making bread. And she would tell me about coming out west in a covered wagon. They had a clock in the back which stopped working during that trip. Months later they found out it had stopped on the hour at which one of her aunts (I believe) died. Then when she was a young girl of courting age she and her friends would go on picnics in the foothills of El Paso and watch the soldiers at Fort Bliss chase Poncho Villa across the boarder. Sometimes the bullets would stray and they'd hear them go whizzing past (yep they were that close).

The way she told her stories was very much in the oral tradition, making it come alive through little bits and tone of voice. I try and remember how she told me stories and use that in my writing.

AD : Do you prefer to talk, listen, or share silence? Are you a direct talker, or do you tend to go the circuitous route?

JB : I like silence, I don¹t need to be talking with someone to be with them. I am, apparently however, a very good listener. And I love to listen to people and their memories. Strangers will open up to me with their life's story. I was waiting for a hearing the other day and another
attorney started telling me of his boyhood in the Northern West, hunting frogs at night using boats and sticks and lanterns. And don¹t think that this won¹t make it into a story somewhere.

When I talk to people I try and be direct. Say what I mean and get it done. Unless that¹s not the point of the conversation. But because of my Great Grandmother I can spin a yarn and hold people enthralled through the way I tell it. I was always the one who had to tell the ghost stories since I was the one who could make people scream at the end.

AD : What¹s the next project you¹re working on?

I'm working on a couple of things. The first is a sequel to a novel that isn't published yet. It¹s actually very modern, mystery/romance between a Goth Nevada Gaming Control Agent who's out and a Goth Riverside Detective who's not. My crit partner on that bugged me for a sequel. But I like those boys so much I gave in. The original book is subbed to a more traditional Gay print house. So we'll have to see what they say, because like most of my work -- there's a hell of a lot of sex involved.

The second I'm writing with possible TOS or High Ball in mind (just depends on the word count at the end). Two cowboys, Manuel and Jess, one Mexican and the other White-Bread American. It starts out at a Charreda (Mexican Rodeo), involves the theft of a horse and centers on Santeria and the Bamboche legends. Bamboche are profits born to the Orisn Chango. I'd say a couple of months and it should be finished.