Reading Stephen Graham Jones's "Growing Up Dead in Texas," While Colorado Burns, Plus an Interview on ShelfLife@Texas

So I’m reading Stephen Graham Jones’s new novel, Growing Up Dead in Texas, which has a wicked description of a cotton-bale fire in West Texas. It’s a bit eerie to read right now, as I’m in Colorado, which seems to be on fire from one part of the state to another. The day before yesterday started out sunny and clear, then the wind shifted to the west, and brought in a pall of smoke from a fire near Pagosa Springs, which is probably 150 miles away, at least. Jones’s novel reminds me of two great songs about tough childhoods, Jim Carroll’s “People Who Died” (1980) and Bruce Springsteen’s “Lost in the Flood” (1973), which has been stuck in my head for days. It conjures up a haunting mood of hardbitten Texans in a flinty world, full of doomed high school roustabouts watching the world go up in flames around them.
And the website ShelfLife@Texas has posted an interview with me, that’s in part about The Bird Saviors, here. I like that they called me an Activist, which is something good to be.