Tumbleweed Sagas
Third Career for Local Author

Mark Greathouse

After decades as business executive, entrepreneur, private equity investor, and educator, why turn to writing full time? I began writing in high school with poetry and short stories, but let’s call college my serious beginnings. I graduated with a BA in English (history minor) from University of Maryland and later did my MBA at American University. My career began with editing military technical manuals. I moved up the corporate ranks, writing business plans, press releases, video scripts, reports, speeches, and more. Meanwhile I was learning my craft. A long shelf in my office closet holds my unpublished book manuscripts. Practice, practice, practice. I self-published a teen novel, Jackson’s Journey, and a book of my poetry, Life Unfettered. In "retirement," authoring books became my "third" career.

Why do I write western fiction? It begins with my Texas roots. My father, John Francis "Jack" Greathouse (1913-1995), a successful automotive executive and later an award-winning jewelry artisan, was born in Alice, Texas. He gave me a 40-page dog-eared biographical account of my Texas ancestors that a cousin had written. After Dad’s passing, I dusted it off and took a closer look. It led me to library and newspaper archives, family interviews, museums, and history books. Happening on a museum in Falfurrias, Texas, I found the enlistment records and a photo of my Texas Ranger grandfather that served to further excite my curiosity. I did some ancestry research. Those five Dunn brother immigrants to Texas led me to a family tree containing more than 2,300 family members spanning nine generations! Coupled with my love of history, my fires were stoked. Digging deeper into family and Texas history, stories swirled in my mind. I yearned to bring Texas history to life. Now, I’ve opened a veritable cornucopia of resources in Texas, including ranchers, clergy, artists, and merchants with photos galore and plenty of old family stories to share.

Tumbleweed? Yes, it’s a metaphor. Actually, my cousin Jim down in Alice, Texas called me Tumbleweed after my habit of seeming to tumble all over Texas visiting family. The metaphor? Life tends to give us lots of choices and it can seem as though we’re being tossed along on some stiff breezes. As to Tumbleweed Sagas, my main character wrestles, or tumbles, with a dilemma throughout the novels as to his duty as lawman or rancher or both.

Texas grabs me. My family gave a lot to Texas. Turns out that the Dunn family was and continues to be generous contributors to the cultural and economic development of Nueces and Duval Counties. The adventures of the likes of "Red John" Dunn, Nicholas Dunn, Patrick Dunn, and John Dunn are indelibly etched on South Texas lore. They built a heritage featuring family and faith, and set examples I’ve striven to follow in my own life.

I’m a New-Jersey-born fifth-generation Texan drawing upon the life and times of my family ancestry in the Tumbleweed Sagas, a series of historical fiction novels set on the Nueces Strip of the late 1850s. Published by Defiance Press & Publishing in Conroe, Texas, the first Saga, Nueces Justice, was released back in July, and the first sequel, Nueces Reprise, released February 11 of this year. They’re available from online retailers in print, audio, and eBook. The third Saga, Nueces Deceit, will be released August 11 with pre-order in June. Some folks get twisted around the word "Nueces" in my Tumbleweed Sagas. Pronounced "new-ACE-es," it’s Spanish for nuts. Pecan trees were plentiful along the Nueces River that marks the northern boundary of the Nueces Strip, the setting for the Tumbleweed Sagas.

As I’m quick to point out, "My fascination with the story of my great great grandfather Nicholas Dunn led me to deliver fiction with a raw edginess based in the very real world of the era. The son of John Dunn, he was famed as Comanche fighter, marksman, drover, rancher, speculator, and family man of deep faith. Nick was a true Texas legend who somehow managed to avoid the old dime store pamphlets." It made it easier to bring the frontier to life.

I strive to turn the character and adventures of my protagonist Texas Ranger Captain Luke Dunn into an amalgam of underlying true stories drawn from my family as coupled with historical events. Set in little Nuecestown (ghost town today) shortly after Texas Ranger James Callahan’s infamous running of Lipan Apache out of Texas, the Tumbleweed Sagas take readers through the story of an Irish immigrant who builds a life as lawman, rancher, and family man. Having witnessed famine and oppression in Ireland, he’s committed to bringing justice and redemption to the vast prairies of the Texas Nueces Strip. The parallels to real life enable readers to vicariously experience bone-chilling dangers, blood-churning action, and just enough romance and sexuality to make a church lady blush. The story is fleshed out with compelling secondary characters featured throughout the Sagas.

I do follow a bit in the literary footsteps of my notorious cousin John Beamon "Red John" Dunn. A son of Matthew Dunn, he was a Texas Ranger turned farmer and museum curator who penned his biography Perilous Trails of Texas back in 1932. His book was edited by his daughter Mary Maud Dunn Wright (pseud. Lilith Lorraine) a renowned poet, sci-fi author, and suffragette.

Key to publishing success is engaging with a successful publisher. Defiance Press & Publishing has been an active partner with me and is committed to publishing all seven Tumbleweed Sagas. (All but the seventh have already been written.) Defiance Press provides the support I could never hope to have achieved through self-publishing. Promotion is huge for publishing success. I’m active on Facebook; do book signings, talks, and media interviews; deliver business group presentations; hang out in coffee houses, am active with area libraries, and fully utilize the resources of my publisher. I’m a member of the Western Writers of America, Poetry Society of Texas, and several local literary groups.

What’s next? Projects include a non-fiction book on angel investing (like Shark Tank), two biographies, a screenplay spec script for Nueces Justice, three more novels, and another book of my poetry.

Do I read? We benefit from how others turn a phrase. You’ll find me reading multiple books at any given time. Authors with aspirations of being published should be avid readers. I read mostly history, folklore, and western novels along with books on philosophy, economics, politics, classics, and more.

Life energizes me. I love rodeos, especially watching bull riding. I work out regularly, enjoy playing tennis, oil paint, and create wall art. My wife and I live in Carroll Valley, Pennsylvania and have two grown sons. Do visit Facebook at Tumbleweed Sagas, my website at www.Tumbleweed.me, or my publisher’s website at www.DefiancePress.com.

I strive to leave my readers with a thought about the old west best expressed by my famed author cousin Mary Maude Dunn Wright, "Not in the spirit of judging their actions by artificial standards which in their day had no existence, but by asking ourselves if we were in their places, should we have acquitted ourselves as well…?" My Tumbleweed Sagas beg readers to answer that question.