By Adam Aasen
It was in the Phoenix airport where Phil Dunlap found his inspiration for a new career.
Along with his wife Judy, he had just spent his vacation hiking, touring and taking rides through the desert. And he loves the old West so much that he decided to pick up a $5 paperback Western novel at a Hudson Books before getting on his 4-hour flight home.
“I finished the book and it was just awful,” he recalls. “And I said, ‘I can write a better Western than this. If this clown can get published, then I can get published.’ So I went home and wrote a Western.’”
Dunlap, a longtime newspaper reporter who lives in Carmel, has had 13 books published. He has two more novels completed that he’s already submitted.
The Western novel writer will be available for a meet-and-greet at the Carmel Clay Public Library on Saturday Nov. 1 from 1 to 4 p.m. Attendees can ask him questions and get their copies signed.
It’s part of the library’s local authors event. Wannabe writers can learn how to get published with a presentation by Nancy Niblack Baxter of the Indiana Writer’s Center at 2 p.m. Registration is not required, but for more information, call 844-3362.
Dunlap has always had a love for the old West and describes himself as “an adventurous type, basically a romantic.” But it took him decades to find this path.
In 1960s, he took one of his first jobs an artist and illustrator for Channel 6. He eventually became a director there. He worked in many jobs over the years. He was creative director at an advertising agency and owned his own ad agency as well. He was art director for a publishing company and wrote freelance magazine articles. He began to become interest in flying and got several license and bought several planes.
In Hamilton County, Dunlap was known for many years as a correspondent for The Indianapolis Star. He covered government meetings and wrote about the community.
Now, he’s traded nonfiction for fiction, as he creates a cast of recurring characters for his series on the Old West. Except, of course, the bad guys. Dunlap always kills them off at the end of his books.
One series follows Cotton Burke, a sheriff in New Mexico, and his deputy who is in love with a town prostitute. Another series follows a deputy U.S. marshal, a lone wolf-type who befriends an Apache Indian when he saves his life. It’s a world filled with gunslingers, saloons, scalawags and dance hall girls.
Most of Dunlap’s books take him a year to write, although he has cranked out of his books – “Apache Law Man” – in just a month and it ended up being one of his favorites.
Dunlap says it’s tough being an author because it’s about more than just writing. You have to follow up with publishers who might have lost your manuscript or have taken months to respond. Although, Dunlap said the increased presence of e-books available on Amazon has been great because it has exposed him to a whole new audience.
Dunlap said he might try writing romance novels next, but jokes that, “I’m too old to start writing romances. That would be embarrassing.”
In the meantime, as Dunlap waits to hear back from publishers – as most authors have to do – he’s always staying busy coming up with new stories about the bygone era of the 19th century West.
“You can never stop creating,” he said. “As you can tell from my past, I’m someone who says, ‘I need more, more, more.’”
