90 Years … and then a Book
What’s left to explore when you’ve had 90 years as a newspaper reporter, an oilfield pilot, a TV station manager, a university professor, a racing sailboat skipper, a political consultant, a husband, a father, a grandfather and great-grandfather, a Naval Reservist and an acrylic artist? For Author Dick Elam the next step was obvious…write fiction about all those aspects of his life. Elam’s first novel in 2017, Anne Bonny’s Wake, marks the first in his “Maggie and Hersh” romance thriller novels, setting the stage for the world-wide sailboat adventures of his main characters.
Where the Writing Began
Although Elam is now in his early 90’s, writing began for the novelist at the age of 14. A proofreader at his hometown Texas daily newspaper, the Abilene Reporter-News, he earned his first byline for an article on the city golf tournament. Later he become student editor of the Abilene High School newspaper. Attending college at the University of Texas at Austin, Elam was elected in 1949 to the position of Editor of The Daily Texan, the institution’s daily newspaper.
After graduation Elam returned to write for the Abilene Reporter-News, a period of time that reappears often these days as stories in his regular blog, “Dick Elam’s Been There”.
Water… and More Water
Along with romance and adventure, a main theme of Elam’s novels is water. Even in the dry West Texas landscape, the author found water in a reservoir north of Abilene where he learned to sail as a Boy Scout in the Sea Scout program. Building his first boat in the garage of his house, Elam went on to race one-design sailboat dinghies such as the Snipe, Flying Dutchman, Thistle, Tempest, Cal 20 and Flying Scot using family members as crew. Family members continued the sailing tradition with son Kelson named All-American in college.
Elam moved to North Carolina in the late 1970’s as a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, where his sailing took him into the coastal waterways. This time he cruised a 30-footer he aptly named Anne Bonny after a famous female pirate from the region. The Carolina waterways set the stage for Anne Bonny’s Wake, where Maggie and Hersch meet under unusual circumstances related to the emerging drug scene in the 1980’s. Elam drafted the first novel in the series at that time, only to put it away and rediscover it five years ago.
After retirement from UNC-Chapel Hill, Elam moved to the Washington Olympic Peninsula where he continued his sailing explorations around the Pacific Northwest.
And the Stories Keep Coming…
Whether sailing adventures or oilfield tall tales or political what-if’s, Elam’s writing draws from his diverse background. In addition to early newspaper reporting, he worked the oilfields of West Texas. That experience led to management of the Abilene TV station KPAR_TV (Abilene-Sweetwater) where he reported oilfield news. A move to the emerging Central Texas town of Austin in the mid 1960’s gave Elam his political campaign insight, when he coordinated the successful re-election campaign for Texas Senator John Tower.
Another career choice provided Elam with graduate degrees in Journalism (University of Texas – 1969) and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (1972). He later taught courses in journalism, broadcast management and film script writing at UT-Austin, UNC-Chapel Hill, the University of Hawaii, Pepperdine University and Ural University at Ekaterinburg Russia.
No doubt readers will find anecdotes and characters from each of those years and regions as Elam’s stories continue.
Stay tuned….