Local author and historian, Dr. Richard F. Selcer, owner of Fort Worth Tours & Trails, chats about the joys, challenges and chronic fatigue of being a professor with a writing fetish.
by Elaine Rogers
You co-authored the Written in Blood books with Kevin Foster. How did that come about and what was the process like? I don't usually co-author books, but Kevin approached me on this project and it worked out well. Kevin is a retired sergeant with the Fort Worth Police Department (and was also a policeman with TCU), and he had a manuscript he wanted help with. He brought the original idea and the lawman's perspective, which was very important, and he was a co-researcher.
Obviously, you're a prolific author, but as a college professor, how do you find the time to write books? Well, with teaching, it is hard, but I always have a brain full of projects rolling around in my head. I'm an insomniac who might fall asleep at 10 p.m. then wake up at 2 a.m., and I'll get up and write. Sometimes it makes 8 a.m. classes hard, but that's how it goes.
Now that you have five published books, is there one that ranks as a "favorite?" That's like asking parents to name their favorite child. They're all different. Hell's Half Acre stands out because it was my first and it did very well, so it seems more evergreen – the fair-haired child, if you will. It's the one that people are still asking for even though it was published back in 1991.
