So Many Hats

Why "writer, lawyer, historian, horsewoman, Montanan?" I could add "voracious reader, dogged researcher, and person most likely to do down a rabbit hole and never emerge!" Along the way I've been a teacher, ran a Macintosh computer repair business, worked at my local library, and even was a college radio DJ. So which hat fits me best?

Perhaps the best answer is that no hat fits perfectly!

When Eric and I were shooting author photos, I tried the classic Montana cowgirl look, posing with my little buckskin half-Arab, Sassy. It didn't work out, as you can see. We tried gamely, but the hat shaded my face and the wind made Sassy's forelock look like I gave her a Mohawk! Ultimately, I ditched the hat, grabbed my Fire Horse, and Indy won the photo contest!

If I had to choose just one label, "Montanan" would be first. On my dad's side, four generations of my family have lived here; on my mom's side, three. My home is under the Big Sky.

"Horsewoman" is next. I tell that tale elsewhere, but horses were my "gateway drug" to history (with a side jaunt into politics—my first "cause" was supporting Wild Horse Annie when I was a fourth-grader). Even in law school, when I studied the rules of statutory construction, an equestrian thought crossed my mind: "hey, this is a lot like interpreting the USEF Rule Book."

I began to write articles for the now-defunct Montana Horseman's Journal in the early 2000s, and was editing Wikipedia* articles about horses and horse racing by 2006. After publishing a magazine piece in 2015 about the horse racing meet in Great Falls, I shifted to writing books.

Montana Horse Racing: A History was my first book, published in 2019. Given that Marcus Daly demanded the better part of two chapters, I knew I had my next project! Once I signed the book contract, I changed hats again, digging into mining technology (pun intended), railroad history (see here for details on that side trip), and the totally fascinating "free silver" movement of the late 19th century.

Today, if a hat fits, I will wear it. And if a rabbit hole of research opens, I follow it wherever it goes!

* I'm somewhere north of 100,000 edits to Wikipedia now and created over 250 new articles there. If you read the articles about the Arabian horse, the Thoroughbred, American Pharoah or California Chrome, I had a lot to do with them.