‘The Last Train To Glen Alum’ Radio Drama

October 2, 2024 By Eric Douglas

One hundred and ten years ago, there was a murder, payroll robbery and posse chase through the hills of Mingo County. West Virginia Public Broadcasting reached back to the golden age of radio to create a radio play of the event called “The Last Train to Glen Alum.” Eric Douglas wrote the play.

‘The Last Train To Glen Alum’ Radio Drama

Douglas: Let’s talk about the atmosphere in West Virginia in 1914.

Stan Bumgardner: 1914 is in some ways, a pivotal year in West Virginia. There’s no way to quantify this, but certainly one of the deadliest coal mine strikes, or strikes period, in U.S. history was at Paint Creek and Cabin Creek in Kanawha County. At the time of the Glen Alum robbery, prohibition had just come into effect in West Virginia, which happened nearly six years before it happened nationally.

But what was happening in southern West Virginia was just massive change. And I mean, everything was changing. Before the Civil War, and even after the Civil War, you know, this had been a sparsely populated area, just some scattered farmland, and really not much of that because of the terrain. If you look at the census numbers, very few people lived in Mingo County, and in certain parts of McDowell County, very few people lived there until the railroads came. The railroad started coming in the 1880s and then by the 1890s, the Norfolk and Western had reached what’s now Mingo County. At that time it was part of Logan County. Mingo County is our newest county. It came in in 1895 and it’s almost solely due to the arrival of the N&W, the Norfolk and Western, and the opening of coal mines. Towns were being built, seemingly overnight, they were all over the place in that part of the state, and places where almost nobody had lived.

Travel around the world without leaving home with Mike Scott

April 19, 2024 By Eric Douglas

Summer is on its way in the northern hemisphere, but I’m sure some of my friends in the southern hemisphere are happy it is almost over. The heat has been alarming and is leading to severe coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef.

At home, though, it’s almost time to get 60 feet underwater here in West Virginia. Which means I have to get my tanks inspected and refilled. Last year, I ended up waiting until nearly the end of the season to go diving. A whole lot of life things got in the way, but that won’t happen this year.

I know I’ve been saying this for months, but I am also finally getting back to writing. For real. I’m about a third of the way into what will be the next Mike Scott thriller novel. It’s a good one and a cool story. But I got myself stuck. I finally figured out it was the location. I was trying to put it someplace I didn’t know very well. Once I realized that, the logjam started to open back up.

Right now, I am reading back through what I’ve written and identifying the places I need to adjust. And getting some new ideas on how to move it forward. Stay tuned.

Lately, I’ve been doing some more writing on Substack as well. It’s an interesting place where essayists write on a wide variety of topics. It’s taken me a little while to find my voice there. I wanted to make it informative and based on my personal travels and experiences. Below are my two most recent essays.

You can subscribe there to get notified whenever I publish a new essay.

Audiobooks

All of the Mike Scott novels and novellas are now available as audiobooks. Some are read by a professional voice actor; others are read by an AI voice. I’m satisfied with the AI reads, but obviously, they can never touch a human professional.

Now that spring and summer road trip season is beginning, if you haven’t listened to any of my audiobooks, I invite you to check them out.

Take a look at all of them.

And speaking of road trips, if you want to get away, but can’t find the time right now, all of the Mike Scott stories are located on the ocean, on beaches and on islands.

Locations in Mike Scott stories include:

Cayman Cowboys – Grand Cayman
Flooding Hollywood – Catalina Island and Los Angeles
Guardians’ Keep – Adriatic coast of Italy
Wreck of the Huron – North Carolina and Cuba
Heart of the Maya – Riviera Maya, Mexico
Return to Cayman – Grand Cayman
Oil and Water – Curacao
The 3rd Key – Florida Keys
Turks and Chaos – liveaboard dive boat in Turks and Caicos
Water Crisis – Moscow, The Bahamas and Miami, along with a couple shorter stops.
Held Hostage: Search for the Juncal — North Carolina and the coast of Mexico.

The mystery of a shipwreck

February 16, 2024 By Eric Douglas

I love diving on a beautiful coral reef, enjoying the circus of colors and fish in front of me. It is warm, relaxing and exciting at the same time. Of course, the topside atmosphere in places with those reefs is just as fun. Warm sand, sun and boat drinks.

But, what really fires my imagination underwater are shipwrecks. A good artificial reef is fun, too, but I do prefer to dive on true shipwrecks. The ship may’ve been lost in a storm, accident or during war time. When I am diving on a wreck, with nothing but the sound of my own bubbles in my ears, my thoughts always go to the question of what was going through the minds of the passengers and crew at the time. Were they fighting and angry? Were they afraid?

I’ve dived on shipwrecks from the Carolinas to the Caribbean to California and they are all mysterious and intriguing. My fiction author’s brain immediately goes into high gear and I’ve been known to literally start writing stories in my head during a dive.

One of my favorite books around a shipwreck is Wreck of the Huron. It went down right off the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

That’s what makes this story I read a few days ago in the Washington Post so intriguing. The headline teases it really well.

A 1940 shipwreck was discovered in Lake Superior. Its mystery endures.

(This is a gift link so it’s free to read.)

The short version is, the captain went down with his ship. But he didn’t have to. The captain should be the last person to leave, but when the crew was safe, he could’ve gotten off, too. It’s easy to speculate what his motivations might’ve been but we will never know.

Audiobooks

I sent out a quick note at the beginning of the month about the complete Mike Scott series now being in audiobook format.

This is an AI reading, and it’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good. I’d love to hear back from listeners to see what you think.

You can check out the links on my website. The list starts with Cayman Cowboys and there is a link to the audiobook from each one.

Also, most of them are on Audible Plus so you can listen to all you want. The remaining few have been accepted into the program and should be there soon.

30 free thriller books

I don’t do a lot of these, but I have joined a multi-author promotion full of free thriller novels. It’s a short one, though. When February ends, so does the promotion so download them now!

Using stories about the ocean as teaching opportunities

December 29, 2023 By Eric Douglas

(This week’s substack article is below. Follow this link for previous essays.)

I’ve been fortunate to have a career that has involved telling stories and working around the ocean. I’ve gotten to write about the things I’ve seen above and below the waves.

One of my goals when I started writing novels was to expose readers to the magic of the ocean. Coming from the recreational dive industry, I hoped divers would enjoy my books so I attempted to make the diving as realistic as possible.

But, I have written with nondivers in mind as well. I want those readers to be excited about my stories. I want some of them to decide to learn to scuba dive and explore the ocean. And I want everyone to learn a few things about the ocean itself.

Recently, I read an essay called Why We Need New Stories About the Ocean: Natalie Hart on the Urgency of Literature That Brings the Ocean into the Climate Story

One thing Hart discussed was the difference between literature about the climate versus the ocean. With climate-based stories, the reader is likely predisposed to have an interest in the overall topic. But with the ocean, it is typically just a setting for a love story, adventure story or even a story of personal reflection like a memoir.

“People can come to books that feature the sea, with no motivation to understand the ocean at all, but they can learn or feel something about the sea through the process of reading. And perhaps these people that we don’t normally reach are the most important of all.”

I don’t write science fiction, but I’ve always understood the genre as taking what is known and extrapolating it into the future. Think about concepts like Warp Speed and digital tablets from Star Trek or Isaac Asimov’s Three Rules of Robotics.

With my books, there is always something readers can take away when it comes to oceans, water, the environment, or reef systems.

An example of that is the 10th novel in the Mike Scott series. It’s all about the shortage of fresh water and the international upheaval that causes.

Recently I saw a story that drought conditions and sea level rise had allowed more salt water intrusion into the Mississippi River causing problems for municipal water supply systems. So many things I extrapolated in Water Crisis are coming true and causing problems.

There are times, as a fiction writer, I question whether I am doing any good. I want to influence people to love and respect the ocean while being in awe of everything we don’t know about it. But it’s easy to get frustrated and wonder if anyone is listening.

And then I shake that feeling off and go back to writing. I continue to tell my fiction stories with truth as the background to help people learn whether they want to or not.

Read my latest essay on Substack

August 17, 2023 By Eric Douglas

I’ve started a new weekly outreach on Substack. This platform is popular with journalists and other writers discussing a number of topics.

Give me a follow if you are interested in stories about writing, diving and whatever else comes along.

Check out my latest post on the tragedy of the dive boat Conception

The dive boat Conception tragedy and learning lessons

I was in Houston a little more than four years ago when I heard about the Conception dive boat tragedy. Thirty-four lives were lost that day. I think about every diver heard that story with a sinking feeling in their stomachs, imagining that it could be them. It has been termed the deadliest maritime disaster in U.S. history.

Even if they’ve never taken a liveaboard dive trip, nearly every diver has spent time on dive boats often out of sight with land. There are times you aren’t sure exactly which way land is. And that inspires thoughts of worry — even if just for a moment thinking “if this boat sinks, what do I do.”