Here’s a lifetime actor turned author. And what a history he has. We met online and I immediately got so caught up in his books that I have read all of those in his historical western series, and the spin-offs.

Please, introduce yourself. Tell us about your personal life, family, education.

            My mama told me I was born about six months before WWII started and we lived in the oil boomtown of Kilgore, Texas. I say mama told me, because we only lived there about 8 months, and I was too young to remember much of anything. 

            Daddy was a driller for Shell Oil and as such, couldn’t join the military to go fight, which he tried to do. They said he had a critical occupation. That being said, in the next fifteen years, we lived in seven states and every boomtown of the time. I attended 21 schools before entering high school. That in and of itself is an education, kinda like the Marine Corps motto: Improvise, adapt, and overcome. I credit that type of upbringing with making me what I am today…some say it’s a good thing, others, not. I am what I am. I can adjust to just about anything and I think that’s reflected in my writing.

            I attended college, Stephen F. Austin State, Nacogdoches, Texas, on a full football scholarship. My high school coach, Buddy Ryan (of the Philadelphia Eagles and Arizona Cardinals coaching fame) got me a walk-on tryout when I got out of the Marine Corps in 1961. They offered me a full ride on the second day of two-a-days. I got my degree in Speech and Drama, as well a business degree in 1964.

            I’ve had a pretty eclectic background of working in sales, owning an oil exploration and drilling company in west Texas (I was a genuine Texas wildcatter), raising registered cattle and quarter horses at my ranch in east Texas, and putting in 45 years as a professional film/TV actor. It wasn’t until I retired from in front of the camera when I was about 68 that I figured out I could write… or at least enjoyed doing so with my first novel at the age of 69.

What do you like doing in your spare time?

            I’ve been asked that question a lot at western celebrity functions and my stock answer is… write.

If you are active in career fields other than writing, what do you hope for the future of that business? Describe your work or business activities in which you are presently active.

            All in the past.

Do you have hobbies? How did you get started in them?

            Just like my spare time… write. Before I got too long in the tooth, I did love to ride. Put many an hour in the saddle.

If you are a writer, are you an avid reader?

            To put it mildly. I probably read one to two novels a week. Thank God for Kindle. With all the books I buy, I’d have to add a room to the house if they were paper.

What is your ultimate writing goal as you see it today?

            Keep writing till I run out of time.

What inspired you to write your first book?

            A close friend, Buck Stienke, and I had filmed a movie that I wrote and directed and he produced; Rockabilly Baby. A friend of mine from the Marine Corps, John Eastman, contacted me and said:

“Hey, Kenny, I wrote a novel.”

“Well, hell, good for you, John.”

“Can you guys adapt it to a screenplay?”

“Sure, send it down.”

He sent a 732-page novel. I asked why he just didn’t send War and Peace? Then I told him he probably wouldn’t like what we would send back. He asked why. I explained that his story was about 350,000 words. A standard screenplay was about 25,000 words, do the math. Well, long story short, we adapted it in about three months. He actually liked it, even though we had to cut a bunch of stuff out, and I believe it’s still making the rounds at Disney.

            When we finished, Buck and I looked at each other and almost simultaneously said, “Hell, we can write a novel.” Twelve weeks later, we finished Black Eagle Force: Eye of the Storm, an above tier one black ops group saving the world. You never saw us. This never happened. We don’t exist. We are the Black Eagle Force. 

            It got published after a year (2012) and we decided that since we already had a production company, we’d make it a publishing company and publish our own books. We wrote three more novels by the time the first one was released, including the first western adapted from a screenplay I wrote in 1986, The Nations. That novel won the Laramie Award for Best Classic Western of 2014. The military novel, Black Eagle Force: Eye of the Storm, won best contemporary adult novel at the North Texas Book Festival. Our second western, Haunted Falls, won the Laramie Award for Best Action Western. I was admitted to the Hall of Fame for Western Writers in 2020.

            Buck and I wrote a total of seven military action novels together. There are ten westerns, four we wrote together and I did six alone. There are ten cop dramady novels with Bone & Loraine, three together and seven by myself, all with Bone & Loraine accidentality sent back to 1898 from 2018. Six western/SciFi, the Silke Justice Series – about a female Pinkerton detective in 1898, joined by Bone & Loraine from the future, by myself. And my newest series, a Southern Noir Mystery with two pre-teen boys…white and black friends in the late 1940s… Foot & Hutch. I am being told by readers the first novel of that series, Three Creeks, is my opus, ranking along with To Kill a Mockingbird and Where the Crawdads Sing. The kicker is it’s my first foray into First Person POV and in that genre after thirty-six novels in Third Person. 

How do you decide on the title of a book?

            They just come to me, don’t know from where. I start with the title, then do the cover, then create the characters, get out of the way, and let them tell the story.


Have you developed a specific writing style and why?

            I’m told I have a distinctive voice, whatever the hell that is. I don’t think much about it, I just tell the damn story. I’m a pure pantser, meaning I don’t outline at all. I just start writing. The story arc, character arcs, plot points, acts and all that technical stuff just seems to be there. I don’t consciously think about them at all. My philosophy is that every step you take toward analysing the story or the characters will take you one step away from the story and the characters.

            All the previous 36 novels have been in third person limited omniscient and the Foot & Hutch series have gone to first person…through the eyes of Foot Lee, full name is Henry Lightfoot Lee. His best friend, a black boy of the same age, is Seymore Washington Grant (Hutch).


How much of your books is realistic and experiences based on someone you know, or events in your life?

            Only occasionally, except for the Foot & Hutch series. In the westerns, I use my years of experience as a rider, a horseman, if you will, and my knowledge of the cattle industry in all my westerns. I’ve studied the old west for pretty close to fifty years. I’m a stickler on authenticity, especially dialogue. That’s probably a carry-over from my years as a professional actor. Foot & Hutch is a great deal of my own childhood.


Who is your favorite writer, and what is it about their work that really strikes you?

            It’s always been Edgar Rice Burroughs. He makes you live his books. I still read him.


Do you remember the first book you read?

            Tarzan of the Apes.

Is there an author, past or present, you would love to meet? Why?

            Burroughs, of course and probably Louis L’Amour. Both are consummate storytellers.

If you could not write, how would you express what you wish to convey through any stories?

            I can’t conceive of not being able to write, but I would probably be an oral storyteller.

When you see new authors struggling, what single piece of advice could you give them on a moment’s notice?

            Get out of the way and let the characters tell the story.

How do you want others to see you or remember you? Is it important to you?

I think we all wish people could see us as we think we are. I would want to be remembered as being a great storyteller. Greatest compliment I can think of. I had the great actor/cowboy Ben Johnson tell me one time at one of his rodeos I was one of the best horsemen in Hollywood… after him, of course. At the time I couldn’t think of anything better than being compared to the best there was.

Do you have a blog or website viewers can visit for updates, events and special offers? Include links to any and all of your sites.

Publishing website: https://www.timbercreekpress.net

I have 7 pages on FaceBook, including:

https://www.facebook.com/ken.storyteller

https://www.facebook.com/groups/WritersRoundup/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/narratorsroundup/

https://www.facebook.com/BLACKEAGLEFORCE/

Western Supernatural Roundup – https://www.facebook.com/groups/343634849935636/

My FaceBook Author page: https://www.facebook.com/KenFarmerAuthor/

Ken Farmer Fandom on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/groups/2106909899538576/

My latest release: THREE CREEKS – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08FYQ95SS

My Amazon Author page: https://tinyurl.com/y5w9df4q