Heather’s Bookshelf: Author Interview with Lance Elliott Osborne
Book Title: Bold Crossings
Released: 12/05/21
Genre: Historical Fiction
Interview by Heather L. Barksdale
What inspired you to write “Bold Crossings”?
Osborne: I grew up with descendants of the original Hornsby settlers, close friends of our family. Mrs. Hornsby gave me a shoebox of old family photos and clippings and I promised to someday write a stage play with it. Decades later, I came across the collection and decided to try my hand at a historical novel. By then, I was woke enough to know the Hornsbys weren’t the first to live in Texas in the early 1800s. After several years of research, I felt ready to represent the Comanche, Hispanic, African American, and other cultures that called Tejas their home.
How did you come up with the names of your main characters?
Osborne: Malcolm Hornsby was the second son born to the family, but there is very little information about him and he didn’t live too long—making Malcolm the perfect candidate for creative license without upsetting family members and the perfect age for my narrative.
Wukubuu is a composite character, a Penatuka Comanche healer loosely based on an obscure study of a Comanche healer by a history professor in the late 1960s, and the reminiscences of my dear late friend and a teacher at the Comanche College in Lawton, Juanita Pahdopony.
Is there anything that you want readers to know about you, your writing process or your book?
Osborne: This project took 10 years of on and off again research, writing, editor reviews, and revisions. I was about to go to press but something was still nagging me about the manuscript. It didn’t feel like it truly belonged to Malcolm, Wukubuu, and the other characters. I woke up in the middle of the night and realized the book had to be in first-person so revised the whole thing again.
If "Bold Crossings" was adapted into a movie, who would you like to see cast to play your lead characters?
Osborne: That’s tough. They are 13 when the story begins. Finn Wolfhard from Stranger Things could probably swing it, but we better cast him quickly, he’s nearly 20. For Wukubuu, in a dream scenario—writers never get to choose—I’d insist on a Native American actor, perhaps even Comanche. Can we find a time machine and cast Tantoo Cardinal?
When you encounter writer’s block, what do you do to break yourself out of it?
Osborne: I write around the block. I mean I literally write little snippets happening before, after, and during the scene that’s got me stumped. Or I leave that project for an hour, maybe a night, and dive back in when I’m refreshed.
Are there any tips that you would like to share with other aspiring authors?
Osborne: Write and cut and rewrite until the characters are typing for you.
What is your favorite genre, book, and/or author?
Osborne: I’m a sucker for biographies, non-fiction history, and historical fiction, but wondrous, crystal-clear impressionistic prose will kidnap me every time. I must have read the first few chapters of Delia Owens’ first novel a dozen times…just let her words wash over me…and I don’t even read that much fiction.
What are you working on next?
Osborne: Well, it’s a good bet it'll be historical. I like the parallel character structure in Bold Crossings so I might go down that path again, but this time perhaps one family and their modern narrative against their beginnings in America.
Learn More About the Author and Bold Crossings:
Interested in checking out the book for yourself?
Find it for purchase here
Interested in submitting your book for review? Visit my review page for guidelines and submission requirements.
review