Redefining the American West: A Conversation with Writer Adam Gnade
Adam Gnade and I have known each other for almost 15 years now. We’ve worked on magazines together, traded manuscripts for editing help and co-wrote books. We’ve moved all over the world but throughout maintained a close correspondence.
We come from different backgrounds. Adam’s from the seashore communities of San Diego, and I grew up in the country in western Nebraska. Two places on the opposite edges of the American West. Two places that couldn’t be more different in weather, geography or people. Two places that share plenty of similarities if you look a little deeper.
As of this writing, neither of us are living in our homelands. Though I’m a little closer geographically to mine, where Adam lives, in rural eastern Kansas, is a lot more like where I’m from. In contrast, Denver has a lot more in common with San Diego when you look at the two cities closely. It’s almost as though we’ve traded the city for the country.
Together and separately over the years we’ve experienced a range of different social and cultural lives in this vast region. From the shores of the Pacific Ocean to the Great Plains and lands in between. The following conversation is about how we define the American West today, the themes that are important to the region and how we approach writing about it.
