Dear John Erickson,
The author and voice of Hank the Cowdog answers some frequently asked
questions!
Will Hank and Miss Beulah ever get married?
Why is Sally May always mad at Hank?
How and where do you record the Hank audiobooks?
How do you do all those voices on the Hank tapes?
Will you ever bring out Hank's songs on a separate music album?
Why don't you make a Hank movie or cartoon?
Why did you decide to write books for children?
Do you write anything but Hank books?
Do you write on a regular basis or only when you get an inspiration?
Do you have a dog named Hank?
JE : The Hank I had in mind when I wrote the first story in 1981 was a dog I had known when I was cowboying in Oklahoma in the 1970s. He was an Australian shepherd, a typical sincere head of ranch security...who was always in trouble for one thing or another. He went around with a bewildered look on his face; he just couldn't understand why people were yelling at him all the time.
Here was a dog who had no self-knowledge, no understanding of how others saw him. I thought that made him a funny character. Since then, I have found Hankish characteristics in my own dogs and have used them as models.
Will Hank and Miss Beulah ever get married?
JE: Not likely. Beulah understands Hank pretty well. She admires him for his good qualities but knows that he really isn't very reliable. She sums it up well in "Beulah's Song" in Faded Love: "Plato is not like you, he's meek and refined/Sometimes I think I should follow my heart instead of my mind/But Plato is kind to me." Old Plato is a little boring, but he's steady.
Dear John R. Erickson,
Why is Sally May always mad at Hank?
JE: Hank's lousy relationship with Sally May has produced some of the funniest scenes in the Hank series, and I've noticed that adults understand it better than kids. Sally May is a homemaker. She tries to bring order and neatness to her yard and home, and Hank keeps blundering into her little world and making messes. She puts some steaks out to thaw and Hank eats them. She spends hours planting flowers and Hank digs them up. He barks at night and bullies her cat. And he always stinks. They are opposites and they always strike sparks, and typical of Hank, he never figures it out.
Dear John R. Erickson,
How do you do all those voices on the Hank tapes?
JE: I don't know. I just do it. It has always been easy for me. I have never taken a course in acting, so you might say that I'm not really qualified to be doing audiobooks. I don't rehearse or do anything to prepare for a recording session. I walk into the studio, put on the headphones, and start reading. If it had been difficult, I probably never would have done the first one.
Dear John R. Erickson,
How and where do you record the Hank audiobooks?
JE: I have done all the recording at the same place, the Audio Refinery in Amarillo, Texas. When I did the first recording in 1982, neither I nor the studio engineers had ever recorded a book before, so we invented the medium as we went along. I wanted the tapes to sound like an old 1950s radio program, with music and sound effects. When we do a recording session, I stand in a soundproof studio that contains nothing but a microphone and a glass of water. Through a glass window, I can see Carlos Casso, the sound engineer, sitting in the control room in front of a bank of dials and switches. Sometimes he laughs, but usually he is pretty solemn. In the early years, it unnerved me that the sound engineer wasn't laughing at my jokes. Now I understand that he is taking care of his business. We record a book in two sessions: six chapters in the afternoon and six chapters the next morning, and the sessions run two hours or less. When I've finished laying down the voice track, Carlos goes back and spends days adding music and sound effects, and editing out my mistakes.
Dear John R. Erickson,
Do you write anything but Hank books?
JE: Yes. The University of North Texas Press publishes a series of books I have written about ranch life and cowboying, based on my experiences in that line of work. They are good books but haven't come close to the popularity of the Hank stories. I also have begun a series of adventure stories for young readers who feel they have outgrown the Hank books. The first is called Moonshiner's Gold. Kids usually start reading it in about the sixth grade.
Dear John R. Erickson,
Why did you decide to write books for children?
JE: One of the great ironies of my writing career is that I don't know anything about children's literature and never thought of the Hank stories as books for kids. I set out to write stories that could be enjoyed by the whole family--kids, parents, and grandparents. I wanted my stories to be part of a family experience, something that would bring families closer together. But then kids started reading them, and teachers started using them in schools, and all at once, they were considered children's books. That has turned out very well, but I am still delighted when I hear about families who read the books aloud.
Dear John R. Erickson,
Why did you spend eight years working as a cowboy?
JE: In 1974 I was offered a job managing a 5,000 acre ranch in the Oklahoma Panhandle. I had spent six years in college and the job paid $550 a month, so it didn't appear to be a smart career move. I know my father wondered about that. But cowboying was something I had dreamed of doing. In high school I had worked on ranches during the summer, so I had enough skill to do the job. I loved cowboying and I was good at it. I also discovered that cowboy work was a good source of writing material, and that's where the Hank stories came from, my experiences working around cattle, horses, dogs, and cowboys. When I was a kid, I dreamed of being a cowboy and never thought of being a writer. Now, thanks to Hank's success, I am able to do both on my own M-Cross ranch.
Dear John R. Erickson,
Do you write on a regular basis or only when you get an inspiration?
JE: I have always been an extremely disciplined writer--my kids might even say fanatical. I get up at 5 or 5:30 every morning and write four and a half hours a day, seven days a week. I write on Christmas day, New Year's day, and my birthday. I write in a hotel room when I'm on the road. I write when we have people visiting in our home. I don't wait for inspiration to find me; I go find the inspiration and chase it down. Sometimes I don't have any inspiration or good ideas, and when that happens, I sit in my office in the bunkhouse for four and a half hours. I find that boredom is a wonderful motivator.
Dear John R. Erickson,
How do you explain the success of the Hank series?
JE: It appears to me that readers find certain qualities in the Hank stories that aren't very common in today's entertainment media. One is innocence. The Hank stories are child-like in the best sense of the word. In Hank's little world, you can escape the ugliness of the evening news. The villains aren't really very bad and the scary parts aren't really very frightening. It's all good clean wholesome fun, this cockeyed world we see through the eyes of a dog who's not very smart. Another quality readers appreciate is the humor. It's not ridicule or bitter satire or dark existential whatever. It's the humor of dogs, who have been amusing human beings for about ten thousand years. Finally, I think there is a moral dimension to the stories that teaches us something about right and wrong. Hank is something of a fool, but he's not kidding when he says that he's Head of Ranch Security. If Hank were human, I don't think he would have any problem posting the Ten Commandments on his wall in the Security Division's Vast Office Complex.
Why don't you make a Hank movie or cartoon?
JE: In 1985 CBS did a thirty-minute animated program on Hank for a series called "CBS Storybreak." We felt sure that a movie was just around the corner, but that has not been the case.
Oh, we've had plenty of interest and have talked to the biggest companies in the business, as well as some we had never heard of. The problem is control of the final product.
We have gone to a lot of trouble to protect the name and reputation of the Hank stories, and have built Hank into a brand-name that stands for quality family entertainment. Unfortunately, we live in a time when a lot of moviemakers don't care about that, but we still do. We won't make a Hank movie until we're sure that the final product will be worthy of the people who have made Hank a national success: YOU.
You write and perform songs for every Hank audiobook. Will you ever bring out the songs on a separate music album?
JE: This is something we have talked about doing for years. The songs add a lot to the stories, but people who have never listened to the stories on tape often don't know that the songs exist. They should.
Some of the songs are ridiculous, but others are actually attempts to make beautiful music. We are now looking at the possibility of bringing out a series of music tapes and CDs, and one of these days you'll see them listed in our catalog and on the Hank website, hankthecowdog.com.
Stay tuned.
©Maverick
Books, All rights reserved.
"Hank the Cowdog" is a registered trademark of John R. Erickson
Illustrations by Gerald L. Holmes