a bit about Nancy Radke...
Hi. I'm Nancy Radke and I write western romances, The Traherns, which are more western and less romance. I write these books without much plotting. I start with a premise (what if…) and then start writing. It's fun, as the plot and the characters develop themselves, so it is like reading a book where you can control it. I enjoy writing these more than my longer books, which I plot first. There are 13 books in the Trahern series, with #14 started.
I grew up on a farm in Southeastern Washington (Blue Mountain area) that had cats and cows and horses and dogs, so a lot of what I write in my western stories are things that I did or knew about. We raised cows and pigs and ate them, so if you made a pet out of it, you knew it would get eaten.
We didn't have any Charlottes, but we did have a Peggy, who was my favorite milk cow. She wouldn't try to put her foot in the bucket while I milked her. This experience was used in The Prettiest Gal on the Mountain, a short story. You don't butcher milk cows, not enough meat, so she was a "safe" pet, along with the horses, dogs, and cats.
Our land bordered the mountain area of Oregon, so I rode all over those mountains, from sun up to midnight sometimes. Never had a cell phone. Once went too far and had to spend the night in the woods. They were my back yard. Worried my parents. I was with another girl and we were farm kids, so the Mountain Rescue folks waited until they saw us come down off the mountain, then called off the alert. We knew we were OK, so didn't see what the fuss was about.
I herded cows, so learned about calves, which you can't control. They are like trying to drive cats. You just drive the mothers, and the calves will catch up. Used this in Appaloosa Blues, a story set in the Blue Mountains. I had a great cow pony, who would almost herd the cows by herself. Sometimes, on the steep mountains slopes, we would be trying to cut off a cow, and she would jump a log with me on her. Downhill that was really scary, as she jumped up and out and the ground was at a 45 degree angle, so at the highest point we were at least ten feet off the ground.
Farm kids learn quick, so around ten years old, I was driving a caterpillar tractor during hay season, while the men loaded the hay wagon. At thirteen, my grandfather taught me to drive a truck. Stick shift, clutch, throttle, brake and starter. He made me start and stop on hills, as I would be driving in the fields. I had to have a pillow behind me to reach the foot pedals. There were no doors on the truck. I used these experiences when writing The Stubbornest Girl in the Valley. The description of the mountain road was what one of our mountain roads looked like every spring, before they graded them.
I attended a one-room country school, the same one my father had attended. It had two rooms for grades one through eight, with two teachers. We usually had between fifteen to twenty students, in all. As a farming community, we had migrant workers, and their kids would be with us for several months to two years at a time.
We rode a bus to school, a small one or sometimes rode our horses, and when we had enough horses we would play king of the mountain on horseback. We rode bareback, two to a horse and the ones in front would guide the horses while the kids in back tried to pull each other off. No one ever got trampled, and there were no broken bones. Sometimes a neighbor dog would join us, especially if one of the kids who lived close by had a dog.
Most of our games were running games of tag. To have a baseball game, you needed everyone. The first time I was catcher (no gear except for a mitt), the eighth grader who was pitching knocked me out with his pitch. Some of our eight graders had taken awhile to go through school, so we had some eighteen-year-old eighth graders. It was years before I could watch a baseball come toward me and not flinch.
We had a huge merry-go-round where we could stand up under it. The eighth graders would spin it so fast, the little kids would lock their arms around the bars and hang on for dear life. The older ones would grab the upright bars and swing out sideways, then either pull back in or let go and fly through the air. A tree stood close by, so you didn't want to hit that if you let go.
We all wore jeans to school except the city girls who transferred in and wore dresses when they first attended, then quickly changed. The parents burned off the cheat grass every fall, so for a while we played in the soot. This did not go well with dresses.
Every day two kids had the honor of raising the flag on the flagpole and then taking it down and folding it away. We always started school with the Pledge of Allegiance.
The kids would help each other learn, and in doing so, would learn more themselves. The classroom had a piano, and the teacher would play and we would sing all the old songs, ones that had a tune and great words. K-K-K-Katy, When Johnny Comes Marching Home, God Bless America, Reuben and Rachel, Sweet and Low, Bicycle Built for Two, Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! (which the boys loved, as they got to stamp their feet), Rock of Ages, Faith of Our Fathers, The Little Brown Church, Jingle Bells -- just to name a few, and to show you the variety. No anti-Christian sentiment in those days.
The school was also where the farming community met. We had school programs, Farm Bureau meetings, square dances, wedding receptions, and singings. A wooden folding wall separated the two classrooms and could be pushed back to make one large room. The old schoolhouse is now someone's home. The merry-go-round is still there.
High school was fun, but I was out on the ranch and although I could drive to and from the grain elevators at fifteen, I couldn't drive the miles into school until I was sixteen, which didn't come until April of my junior year. So I wasn't involved in many high school activities, although I was president of a service club my senior year. I was also on the rifle team, which met at the rifle range in the school, where we would practice shooting. I had shot guns from age eight or so on, shooting varmints that were too big for our cats to kill, so when I describe shooting with a gun, I know what I'm talking about. I use this in almost all of my Trahern stories, especially in The Prettiest Girl in the Land, a novella, as Ruth knows how to bark squirrels. (You want them for food, so you shoot next to them and hit the bark, which stuns them and knocks them out of the tree.) I never did bark a squirrel.
When I graduated, I became one of five girls chosen to be on the SE Washington Fair court. One of the things they would do for the Fair is put us all into a wagon behind eight horses and drive it into the arena at a full gallop. There my seat learned to appreciate what the early pioneer women went through and why they preferred to walk alongside the wagons. I used this several times in my stories, especially The Smartest Horse in Texas, and The Quietest Woman in the South (that wagon was pulled by a mule named General Wheezer).
I graduated at seventeen, started college (U. of WA), met my future husband the next spring, went together for over a year and married at nineteen. With summer school, did 5 years of college in 4. We would go to Anchorage each summer and live with his folks while we worked to get money to do another year of school. With almost 24 hours of daylight, he could work two jobs, while I worked one.
While in college, my husband and I would go on all day hikes throughout the Cascade Mountains. I used these experiences to write "Courage Dares," and The Luckiest Man in the West. After we graduated, we spent the summer in a lookout tower in the Cascades. Then I started my first teaching job. I was just 21, and thought it funny when parents would ask my advice, as I hadn't any kids of my own.
I've lived in Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington. Went through the Peace Corps outward-bound program, where I learned to rappel off mountainsides (and dams), and survival swim in the Atlantic Ocean in Puerto Rico. (Spirit of a Champion, Height of Danger).
We have three children and five grandchildren. My oldest grandchild, Chase Miller, is married now. Extremely artistic and creative. He's written and illustrated three children's books (Rande the Mouse). (T'was the Night Before Christmas - A Mouse's Tale, Rande's First Swim, and Rande's Snow Day.) He's done all the book covers for Jackie Roger's Honey Beaulieu series.
My great grandmother came out in a wagon train in 1864, and left a journal for her descendants. I figured I could use her experiences when writing my stories, so used it for The Handsomest Man in the Country, and later for The Loneliest Man in the Mountains. This was a firsthand account.
Now that I have the internet, I do my fact checking over it, but at the time I wrote Handsomest Man, there was no internet, so I used my grandmother's journal.
I used her accounts of the skunk in the meat barrel, crossing the Missouri River, the burned wagon train, the train that had lost all their livestock when the Indians ran them off, crossing the Blue Mountains, losing their stuff on the trail, cockleburs in their hair, picking up buffalo patties for fuel, never stopping for anything except to quick bury the dead, and other items. Later, since she had an excellent medical book, she served as "doctor" for the birth of over 100 babies.
She mentioned how much she loved the little mules that pulled their wagon. Near the end, they were so far gone, they would close their eyes, but they still pulled.
A lot of the things that happened to me is now woven into my stories. I think that age helps a writer as they have so many experiences to draw on. It keeps them from making too many mistakes, and also gives depth to their descriptions. A vivid imagination also helps, as it keeps running scenarios through your mind. I find the characters are with me daily, having conversations and pointing things out about the book to me. Creepy.
Currently I am getting The Handsomest Man in the Country, and "The Smartest Horse in Texas" ready to put up as audio books. I plan to do the entire Trahern series this way, as they lend themselves to that format. I have a sound studio in my home, as I use it when producing the Show & Tell Bible series of DVDs.
The first volume of the SHOW AND TELL BIBLE took eight years to complete. It is two hours long, contains 650 hand-drawn pictures, and gives the impression of a picture book being read by a well-loved parent or grandparent. Little children are absolutely enthralled by it. The second volume is three hours long, 850 pictures, concluding with Esther. It was finished in three years, so I really did manage to speed up. The Books of Poetry and Prophecy finishes the Old Testament, covering all the books from Job through Malachi.
The positive feedback from parents and kids is tremendous. I am working on the fourth volume now, which will cover the Gospels. When the entire Bible is finished, I plan to do other children's books on DVD. And for my romance fans, there are more of those coming.
My latest project is Raising Giants, a home school program that includes how to teach, what to teach, and individualized coaching. You can access the Raising Giants site at raising-giants.mykajabi.com A FREE program, "Teach Your 4-Year-Old How to Read," is available there. Since my seven-year-old brother taught me to read at age 4, I figure most anyone can do it.
I grew up on a farm in Southeastern Washington (Blue Mountain area) that had cats and cows and horses and dogs, so a lot of what I write in my western stories are things that I did or knew about. We raised cows and pigs and ate them, so if you made a pet out of it, you knew it would get eaten.
We didn't have any Charlottes, but we did have a Peggy, who was my favorite milk cow. She wouldn't try to put her foot in the bucket while I milked her. This experience was used in The Prettiest Gal on the Mountain, a short story. You don't butcher milk cows, not enough meat, so she was a "safe" pet, along with the horses, dogs, and cats.
Our land bordered the mountain area of Oregon, so I rode all over those mountains, from sun up to midnight sometimes. Never had a cell phone. Once went too far and had to spend the night in the woods. They were my back yard. Worried my parents. I was with another girl and we were farm kids, so the Mountain Rescue folks waited until they saw us come down off the mountain, then called off the alert. We knew we were OK, so didn't see what the fuss was about.
I herded cows, so learned about calves, which you can't control. They are like trying to drive cats. You just drive the mothers, and the calves will catch up. Used this in Appaloosa Blues, a story set in the Blue Mountains. I had a great cow pony, who would almost herd the cows by herself. Sometimes, on the steep mountains slopes, we would be trying to cut off a cow, and she would jump a log with me on her. Downhill that was really scary, as she jumped up and out and the ground was at a 45 degree angle, so at the highest point we were at least ten feet off the ground.
Farm kids learn quick, so around ten years old, I was driving a caterpillar tractor during hay season, while the men loaded the hay wagon. At thirteen, my grandfather taught me to drive a truck. Stick shift, clutch, throttle, brake and starter. He made me start and stop on hills, as I would be driving in the fields. I had to have a pillow behind me to reach the foot pedals. There were no doors on the truck. I used these experiences when writing The Stubbornest Girl in the Valley. The description of the mountain road was what one of our mountain roads looked like every spring, before they graded them.
I attended a one-room country school, the same one my father had attended. It had two rooms for grades one through eight, with two teachers. We usually had between fifteen to twenty students, in all. As a farming community, we had migrant workers, and their kids would be with us for several months to two years at a time.
We rode a bus to school, a small one or sometimes rode our horses, and when we had enough horses we would play king of the mountain on horseback. We rode bareback, two to a horse and the ones in front would guide the horses while the kids in back tried to pull each other off. No one ever got trampled, and there were no broken bones. Sometimes a neighbor dog would join us, especially if one of the kids who lived close by had a dog.
Most of our games were running games of tag. To have a baseball game, you needed everyone. The first time I was catcher (no gear except for a mitt), the eighth grader who was pitching knocked me out with his pitch. Some of our eight graders had taken awhile to go through school, so we had some eighteen-year-old eighth graders. It was years before I could watch a baseball come toward me and not flinch.
We had a huge merry-go-round where we could stand up under it. The eighth graders would spin it so fast, the little kids would lock their arms around the bars and hang on for dear life. The older ones would grab the upright bars and swing out sideways, then either pull back in or let go and fly through the air. A tree stood close by, so you didn't want to hit that if you let go.
We all wore jeans to school except the city girls who transferred in and wore dresses when they first attended, then quickly changed. The parents burned off the cheat grass every fall, so for a while we played in the soot. This did not go well with dresses.
Every day two kids had the honor of raising the flag on the flagpole and then taking it down and folding it away. We always started school with the Pledge of Allegiance.
The kids would help each other learn, and in doing so, would learn more themselves. The classroom had a piano, and the teacher would play and we would sing all the old songs, ones that had a tune and great words. K-K-K-Katy, When Johnny Comes Marching Home, God Bless America, Reuben and Rachel, Sweet and Low, Bicycle Built for Two, Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! (which the boys loved, as they got to stamp their feet), Rock of Ages, Faith of Our Fathers, The Little Brown Church, Jingle Bells -- just to name a few, and to show you the variety. No anti-Christian sentiment in those days.
The school was also where the farming community met. We had school programs, Farm Bureau meetings, square dances, wedding receptions, and singings. A wooden folding wall separated the two classrooms and could be pushed back to make one large room. The old schoolhouse is now someone's home. The merry-go-round is still there.
High school was fun, but I was out on the ranch and although I could drive to and from the grain elevators at fifteen, I couldn't drive the miles into school until I was sixteen, which didn't come until April of my junior year. So I wasn't involved in many high school activities, although I was president of a service club my senior year. I was also on the rifle team, which met at the rifle range in the school, where we would practice shooting. I had shot guns from age eight or so on, shooting varmints that were too big for our cats to kill, so when I describe shooting with a gun, I know what I'm talking about. I use this in almost all of my Trahern stories, especially in The Prettiest Girl in the Land, a novella, as Ruth knows how to bark squirrels. (You want them for food, so you shoot next to them and hit the bark, which stuns them and knocks them out of the tree.) I never did bark a squirrel.
When I graduated, I became one of five girls chosen to be on the SE Washington Fair court. One of the things they would do for the Fair is put us all into a wagon behind eight horses and drive it into the arena at a full gallop. There my seat learned to appreciate what the early pioneer women went through and why they preferred to walk alongside the wagons. I used this several times in my stories, especially The Smartest Horse in Texas, and The Quietest Woman in the South (that wagon was pulled by a mule named General Wheezer).
I graduated at seventeen, started college (U. of WA), met my future husband the next spring, went together for over a year and married at nineteen. With summer school, did 5 years of college in 4. We would go to Anchorage each summer and live with his folks while we worked to get money to do another year of school. With almost 24 hours of daylight, he could work two jobs, while I worked one.
While in college, my husband and I would go on all day hikes throughout the Cascade Mountains. I used these experiences to write "Courage Dares," and The Luckiest Man in the West. After we graduated, we spent the summer in a lookout tower in the Cascades. Then I started my first teaching job. I was just 21, and thought it funny when parents would ask my advice, as I hadn't any kids of my own.
I've lived in Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington. Went through the Peace Corps outward-bound program, where I learned to rappel off mountainsides (and dams), and survival swim in the Atlantic Ocean in Puerto Rico. (Spirit of a Champion, Height of Danger).
We have three children and five grandchildren. My oldest grandchild, Chase Miller, is married now. Extremely artistic and creative. He's written and illustrated three children's books (Rande the Mouse). (T'was the Night Before Christmas - A Mouse's Tale, Rande's First Swim, and Rande's Snow Day.) He's done all the book covers for Jackie Roger's Honey Beaulieu series.
My great grandmother came out in a wagon train in 1864, and left a journal for her descendants. I figured I could use her experiences when writing my stories, so used it for The Handsomest Man in the Country, and later for The Loneliest Man in the Mountains. This was a firsthand account.
Now that I have the internet, I do my fact checking over it, but at the time I wrote Handsomest Man, there was no internet, so I used my grandmother's journal.
I used her accounts of the skunk in the meat barrel, crossing the Missouri River, the burned wagon train, the train that had lost all their livestock when the Indians ran them off, crossing the Blue Mountains, losing their stuff on the trail, cockleburs in their hair, picking up buffalo patties for fuel, never stopping for anything except to quick bury the dead, and other items. Later, since she had an excellent medical book, she served as "doctor" for the birth of over 100 babies.
She mentioned how much she loved the little mules that pulled their wagon. Near the end, they were so far gone, they would close their eyes, but they still pulled.
A lot of the things that happened to me is now woven into my stories. I think that age helps a writer as they have so many experiences to draw on. It keeps them from making too many mistakes, and also gives depth to their descriptions. A vivid imagination also helps, as it keeps running scenarios through your mind. I find the characters are with me daily, having conversations and pointing things out about the book to me. Creepy.
Currently I am getting The Handsomest Man in the Country, and "The Smartest Horse in Texas" ready to put up as audio books. I plan to do the entire Trahern series this way, as they lend themselves to that format. I have a sound studio in my home, as I use it when producing the Show & Tell Bible series of DVDs.
The first volume of the SHOW AND TELL BIBLE took eight years to complete. It is two hours long, contains 650 hand-drawn pictures, and gives the impression of a picture book being read by a well-loved parent or grandparent. Little children are absolutely enthralled by it. The second volume is three hours long, 850 pictures, concluding with Esther. It was finished in three years, so I really did manage to speed up. The Books of Poetry and Prophecy finishes the Old Testament, covering all the books from Job through Malachi.
The positive feedback from parents and kids is tremendous. I am working on the fourth volume now, which will cover the Gospels. When the entire Bible is finished, I plan to do other children's books on DVD. And for my romance fans, there are more of those coming.
My latest project is Raising Giants, a home school program that includes how to teach, what to teach, and individualized coaching. You can access the Raising Giants site at raising-giants.mykajabi.com A FREE program, "Teach Your 4-Year-Old How to Read," is available there. Since my seven-year-old brother taught me to read at age 4, I figure most anyone can do it.
