LIVE! #77
1 February 2026
Agenda
- Why We're Here / Roundtable Rules
- Introduction to Literary Forensics
- Group Discussion
- Further Study
Why We're Here
We writers want to improve our craft
by reading like a writer
We learn from each other
using Literary Forensics
Roundtable Rules
Always refer back to the book
Practice active listening & serendipity
Every feeling and observation is valid...
but not every conclusion
Always refer back to the book
Reading Teaches Writing
Meet today's author: Stephen Graham Jones
- Born in Midland, Texas, in 1972, Jones is an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Tribe of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana, where he returns every July to attend the Blackfeet Nation Pow Wow and in November for the annual Montana Blackfeet elk hunt.
- Jones received his Bachelor of Arts in English and Philosophy from Texas Tech University, a Master of Arts in English from the University of North Texas, and his Ph.D. from Florida State University, using his first published novel, The Fast Red Road, as his dissertation.
- Jones is a prolific author of experimental fiction, horror fiction, crime fiction, science fiction, and the occasional comic book and short story. He is the NYT bestselling author of 34 novels, 350+ short stories, 7 comic books and other books.
- Since 2008 Jones has taught at the University of Colorado in Boulder as the Ineva Reilly Baldwin Endowed Chair. He resides in Boulder, Colorado, with his wife, son, and daughter.
"I feel like the vampire over the centuries, with all the many
many wonderful tellings of its story, has kind of accumulated a lot of characteristics that started out as
dramatic conveniences. And they became codified into the DNA, and then used without being interrogated."
—Stephen Graham Jones
"What if I was a vampire? What would I do with it?
And it's obvious: I'd kill all the buffalo hunters I could."
—Stephen Graham Jones
"That's the magic of reading, I think, actually; it works out
your empathy muscles."
—Stephen Graham Jones
What do you feel?
What in the book elicited that feeling?
Every feeling and observation is valid...
but every conclusion should be questioned
We practice serendipity
- nothing is too crazy
Always refer back to the book
What do you notice?
Writing The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
- After teaching a graduate seminar on vampires, Jones thought he'd give one a try. He didn't want his vampire to be glamorous without experiencing real consequences for his actions.
- Jones wrote his first draft in 10 weeks (Dec 2023–Feb 2024).
- He has said that he likes to write in bursts, so he can escape the story consuming his thoughts and get back to the real world quicker.
- Jones realized early that his main character, Good Stab, sounds a lot like Fast Horse in James Welch's 1986 novel Fools Crow, which ends with the 1870 Marias River Massacre of 300 Blackfeet.
- Worried about Good Stab's voice becoming ironic like Percival Everrett's "My Pafology" (Erasure).
- Buffalo Hunter and The Only Good Indians share some characters.
- Jones has said that Arthur Beaucarne's voice mimics the way he thinks, filled with Victorian vocabulary——that's not quite accurate.
- He wanted to start his novel with Arthur, but Esty Beaucarne jumped in, so he used her voice as a frame story. He believes that Buffalo Hunter would not be complete or relevant today without her.
Stats & Background
- Marketing: Vampire Horror, Indigenous Literature, Indigenous Literature & Fiction, Historical Fantasy, U.S. Horror Fiction, American Literature
- Genre: Supernatural Historical Long-Form Archplot
- Print Pages: 448; Word count: 141,649
Reading Grade: 9th; Avg. wds/sent.: 19.18
Lexical Density: 43.18; Flesch Reading Ease: 75.40 - POV: Etsy, Arthur, Good Stab; Person: 1st; Tense: Past
- Publish date: March 18, 2025
- Publisher: S&S/Saga Press
- Audio book length: (15 hours, 29 mins)
- Narrators: Shane Ghostkeeper, Marin Ireland, Owen Teale
- Recognition: A New York Times’s 100 Notable Books of 2025; A Barack Obama Summer Read; A Time, The Washington Post, NPR, Shelf Awareness, Toronto Star, and Publishers Weekly Best of the Year; Kirkus Reviews Best Historical Fiction
