'You can't go wrong if it's real'

 

“If we judge others it is because we are judging something in ourselves of which we are unaware.” – John Camp

 

Novelist and journalist Camp, who writes as author John Sandford, was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on this date in 1944.  I first met him in 1985 when he was writing feature stories for the St. Paul Pioneer Press & Dispatch.   As a feature writer myself, I admired Camp’s craftsmanship and style.

 

At the time of our meeting in the Pioneer Press newsroom, Camp was writing a series about the life and struggles of a farm family in southwestern Minnesota – not far from where I had lived as a child on a nearby South Dakota farm.  We had a pleasant talk and I asked him what he might be doing next.  “I want to write books,” he said.  “I like newspapers, but I think I’ve got a book or two in me.”  That next spring, he won the Pulitzer Prize for that farm series so I was positive he would stay in journalism. 

 

But Camp followed his dream and started writing thriller/suspense/crime novels about a loner detective (Lucas Davenport) who goes against the grain to solve crimes, written with the same realism Camp put into his feature writing.   This year Camp/Sandford is releasing his 58th novel, Toxic Prey, and still going strong, although it’s sad the journalism world lost his gifted voice.  

 

“Write it as you see it.   Just go outside and look at something and write it down and you’ll find it’s a very nice piece of writing.  You can’t go wrong if it’s real.”