So, there’s a lot going on. My official Facebook page reached 1 million readers in the month of May.
I’m shocked, and the impact on my life has been immediate. I appreciate you all sticking by me over the years and participating in my art.
To put that into context, one of the top outdoor magazines in the country (and one my work has been featured in), Outside Magazine, reached 650,000 people last month.
On the writing front, my nature thriller “The Puller” is coming from award wining PYR in November, with distribution by Simon and Schuster. I couldn’t be more thrilled. I’m currently planning a tour in Montana, California, and the PNW. Can’t wait to see you guys!
I’m also working on two new novels.
If you look at my novels, “The Puller” was always a literary thriller at heart. Much of the novel is dedicated to landscape as character (see Cormac McCarthy as the best example of this) and to the relationships, with social commentary. My novel “Black Friday” expanded on this style, with a very expanded landscape, and also a focus on relationships and social commentary.
I was fortunate that “The Puller” was optioned for film and in development, and there are currently other options in the pipeline, for other stories.
I’m bringing this up because the new novels are absolutely a continuation of “The Puller” and the “Black Friday” literary experimentation style.
There were several directions I could’ve taken my career, but this path seemed to be the most organic fit. It’s not forced. It’s just what’s in my heart.
I’m happy to finally report that my debut novel “The Puller” has been picked up by the excellent Pyr. This is part of the news I’ve been hinting about.
The harrowing story of Matt Kearns lives on, and will be in hardcover, with distribution by Simon and Schuster.
A big thank you to my fantastic agent Lane Heymont. The Puller would not have been possible without Sarah, Debbie, Charlie, and Pam Welsh. And my father, Bruce Hodges.
I’m thrilled that this story continues to move people. More novels to come. And thank you all for sticking around.
Happy my debut novel found an outstanding new home.
Whew. It’s been a minute since I’ve posted a substantiative update to this page.
I left Missoula in January to house shop in the Pacific Northwest, camp, photo journal, and wrap up a writing deadline. While Montana will always be my #1, The long winters have started to wear on me. However, the summers are impossible to beat.
I checked out the Oregon coast, Portland, and several other areas. In the process I lost my whisper-quiet photography drone, which was capable of filming at 4k resolution with a 3-way gimbal head. The drone went berserk fifteen yards from me and crashed into a remote salmon stream. I searched for the drone for two days in the wilderness ravine, but no luck. BUT, luckily DJI stands by their products, and they shipped me a new drone for free. So that’s cool.
On the writing front, my debut novel THE PULLER has a new publishing home. I’m hoping to announce specifics any day now. In addition, I’m 1/3rd of the way finished with what I consider to be a novel on the level of THE PULLER called, LOST PLANES, LOST RIVER. It falls into the category of “upmarket thriller” and I’m excited about the project. I really wanted to come at the page hard and not filter myself. I wanted it to be art, not product in the way TH PULLER is experimental. It’s turning out well.
And on the house shopping front, things are getting interesting. In March of 2019, I left Missoula with my adventure cat Wrigley to attend a couple business meetings in LA. After the meetings, Wrigley and I ended up visiting various national parks and forests. And sadly, he died on December 27th, 2019. This had a profound impact on me…the kind of tectonic shift to where it felt like I’d become someone else. Less brighter, less smiles. Despite a myriad of distractions.
I honestly haven’t been able to stay between four walls for longer than a week. I feel compelled to move at all times, whether that constitutes gym, hiking, photography, different hotels, etc. This feeling, this change, doesn’t seem to be fading, but rather intensifying as time passes. So I’ve been rolling with it. The freedom is intoxicating. We’ll see how much longer it lasts.
The only thing I’ve ever learned in all this, is that nothing lasts forever. Not drones, not careers, not friends, nor beloved cats that liked Redwood National Park. But we try to make it last, don’t we?
Best, – Michael
A remote section of the Oregon coast where my drone disappeared.
This last month has been *crazy*. I’ve spent a lot of time writing, camping, and staying in hotels across the beautiful Pacific Northwest. It’s been a bit of a celebration. Writing news SOON.
So, there’s a lot going on in the world. I try to keep this page mostly light (unlike my novels haha), but I feel that as a leader in the writing community, photography community, and on social media in general, it’s my obligation to use my voice in times like these. In the end, all we have is our time and our voice. I’d much rather post an elk photo but not every day is elk day, right?
I want to touch on gullibility, conspiracies, making decisions based on emotion (which I’m sometimes guilty of), and shrinking circles.
If a person finds their circle shrinking, and that they’re “running out of apps to post on”, perhaps it’s time for that person to take a deep breath and to reassess the world around them from a logical, calm standpoint. Maybe, just maybe the reason this person’s world is shrinking is because they’ve fallen for emotion-based ideas, such as unproven conspiracies or unproven doomsday theories. When a person goes “all in” on unproven, unsubstantiated conspiracies, they’re making a decision based on their emotions, not with logic.
And if a person makes a series of emotion-based decisions, they can sometimes find themselves in a bad spot. Like the recent riot at the U.S. capitol. It’s a snowball effect of bad decisions. And at this point it’s always a good idea to talk less, and read more from a variety of credible sources. To observe. To participate still, but to tilt towards observation amongst that participation.
Are you buying into ideas that you haven’t vetted, or just
going along with what family and friends tell you? Are you able to tell the
difference between a disguised, manipulative threat and something benign?
A year or so ago, I witnessed someone in my circle (very close, actually) fall for manipulation and threats from their isolated and conspiracy-prone family. This was a very unpopular circle, a fringe circle, prone to wild emotions and unproven conspiracies. For years this person showed me the threatening texts from her family, basically telling her to get her mind right or she’d be left behind by the family and a very angry god, but that they only were saying these things “because we love you”. I couldn’t believe what I was reading at the time. Their texts were so far-flung, that I simply never envisioned this person I knew falling for the manipulative bait.
One week, after this person was ganged up on by members of the fringe sect on a trip, this person changed. She was literally followed back to her work by them from another city, and coerced into handing in her two week notice. From there she lived for years in her grandma’s basement, being “taught” by this fringe group. During that time, a light flicked off in her eyes, and she started speaking like a robot, of things that were obviously “placed” there through repetition and group pressure by the fringe sect. Threats of being “left behind” from close family members and “love bombing” by strangers ( a common cult tactic) were used on her. I did what I could to pull her out of this fringe group, in fact, Wrigley and I tried to for several months.
But I failed.
Every time this person tried to use her own personality and her own mind again, she was reeled in with “concerned” coffee meetings by members of this fringe group. This is similar to what we’re seeing by some of the capitol rioters. There’s absolutely a group pressure element in all of this.
In all this pressure, a very unique and promising career had been flushed down the tubes as this person found their circle shrinking. And shrinking, until they were surrounded by nobody except the few people who believed exactly like they did…in fear-based, wild conspiracies, slowly but surely reduced to only a handful of fringe apps in the basement of the internet. A tiny, isolated echo chamber of delusions.
There was nothing I could do.
This personal experience seems to correlate with the recent growth in people who buy into conspiracy theories and cult-like groups without thinking…without vetting. It’s all too easy to just “go with the flow” of the people you’re told to trust. Of people you know the best. But of course, this can often be detrimental, as we saw last week at the U.S. capitol. And I see the same eyes in those rioters as I saw in my once close friend after the fringe group persuaded her: the eyes of the lost. Eyes with no light.
I long time ago, I fished with my grandma up in Wisconsin’s
Northwoods. We’d sit at the end of the pier, holding bamboo poles, watching our
bobbers as bald eagles flew overhead.
The sunfish and bluegills had small mouths and rarely swallowed the hook, they were nibblers. The perch, however, always swallowed the bait with abandon. I disliked it. The perch often wouldn’t make it, and twitched or floated to the surface after I released them. The perch took the bait without thinking.
Eventually, I stopped bobber fishing.
So I have to ask. Are you the sunfish or the perch?
