Best-selling author discusses writing mystery

New York Times best-selling author Margaret Coel gave a lecture Thursday evening in the Student Center Ballroom as part of the Pilster Great Plains Lecture Series. The lecture was the opener for the Marie Sandoz Heritage Society’s 2014 conference.

A Colorado native, Coel spoke about her start as a journalist writing on the American West, and how research for a magazine article sparked her interest in the history of the Arapahos in her home state.

She began investigating the mystery of an Arapaho leader named Chief Left Hand. In her pursuit to track down where Left Hand learned to speak English, Coel discovered that she had enough information gathered to write her first non-fiction book, “Chief Left Hand,” which was published by the University of Oklahoma Press. She claims bragging rights to the fact that the book has never gone out of print.

Coel spoke at length about the struggles Arapahos faced after being displaced by white settlers migrating west in search of gold. She also mentioned how the mysteries she investigated in her non-fiction work inspired her to craft fiction.

The 18-book Wind River Mystery series is set on the Wind River Reservation in central Wyoming. The novels center on Coel’s main characters Father John Aloysius O’Malley, a Jesuit missionary; and Vicky Holden, an Arapaho attorney; as they seek to uncover a number of real mysteries, ranging from contemporary crimes and injustices to stories that have a deep-rooted place in Arapaho Folk lore.

Coel discussed the process of interviewing Arapahos on the reservation, and the cultural barriers she encountered, and answered questions from the audience about her research-intensive writing process.