Virtual Zoom Event with Author Craig Johnson and Actor Lou Diamond Phillips
Author Craig Johnson, top left, with Actor Lou Diamond Phillips, bottom middle, and our moderator Author Bill Peschel, top right.
If you would like to view the interview, please use the link below:
On September 24th, at 6:30 pm, we launched our bookshop's first Zoom event with Author Craig Johnson and Actor Lou Diamond Phillips on Mr. Johnson's Virtual Book Tour 2020. Before we hosted this event, we held three zoom practices in order to make sure that the audience, as well as ourselves, were comfortable with the program and really understood what was required in order to give the best video streaming event we could possibly give. We would like to thank everyone who partook in those practices as this event would not have been as much of a success without your participation.
On the night of the event, Mr. Johnson spoke about his newly released novel, Next to Last Stand, in which Walt Longmire is brought into an investigation that has stemmed from a painting burned in a fire in the year 1946. After the apparent fatal heart attack of Charley Lee Stillwater brings a piece of a painting and a million dollars to light, Walt's path takes him up against a dangerous art heist involving Custard's Last Fight, one of our country's most viewed paintings.
Mr. Johnson began the interview discussing how a heist story has been in the back of his mind for quite some time and how the painting became his "access point" for writing the story line. He went into further detail of the painting featured in his novel and the history behind it. Our moderator, Author Bill Peschel, brought up some of the historically inaccurate depictions in the painting and Mr. Johnson expanded and elaborated on some of the historical discrepancies the painting projections.
Mr. Peschel went into the process of character development and asked Mr. Johnson about the way he displays the relationships between his characters. Mr. Johnson went into further discussion on this subject and used the comparison between writing a novel and conducting a chorus to illustrate the purpose of each character. More of the novel's story line is talked about as well as topics revolving around General Custard and the different way history was, or could of, changed as of results from his battle at Little Big Horn.
About halfway through our interview, we were being entertained by a video displaying images of the painting and the lands which once held the battle of Little Big Horn. Being heard during the video was Actor Lou Diamond Phillips reading a section of Next to Last Stand. As the video was playing, Mr. Phillips joined us and Mr. Peschel introduced him to the audience.
Mr. Phillips first discussed his role on Longmire and how he takes on the role of Henry Standing Bear in the television series. More in depth conversation into Henry Standing Bear led us into an insightful conversation into his character and his background that helps define his attributes.
The topic shifted toward the writing and publishing of Mr. Phillips's first novel, The Tinderbox: Soldier of Indira, and the process he took in creating his book. Mr. Phillips went into the story of how he meet his wife, an artist, and they joined their abilities to create this novel that will be coming out October 20th of this year. This science fiction story follows a young warrior who becomes stranded on an enemy planet after his first fight and must adapt to his new surroundings in order to survive. In the midst of so many different people and groups out to get him, Everson accidentally meets Allegra, the princess of his enemy, and joins forces with her to help end the war between their people.
Some questions were directed back to Mr. Johnson and interesting facts regarding one of movies that Mr. Phillips acted in, Young Guns, were brought up. For instance, did you know that Lou Diamond Phillips is over six foot?
We had a wonderful night with Mr. Johnson and Mr. Phillips as well as seeing the chat between our participants. Our audience was so engaged with what was going on and it blew us away to have so many people from around our country joining together for this event. In our wildest dreams, we would have never thought that we would been shipping out orders to over nineteen different states and hosting this zoom event internationally. Thank you to everyone who was a part of this event and for everyone supporting our bookshop through your orders.
Special Thanks to:
Author Craig Johnson
Actor Lou Diamond Phillips
Author Bill Peschel
Web Master Sarah Ickes
To Order Next to Last Stand book:
To Order Next to Last Stand Audio book:
To Pre-Order Tinderbox: Soldier of Indira book:
To Order Writers Gone Wild book:
