Never Shoot a Stampede Queen
About this ebook
The cops wanted to shoot me, my bosses thought I was a Bolshevik, and a local lawyer warned me that some people I was writing about might try to test the strength of my skull with a steel pipe. What more could any young reporter hope for from his first real job?
The night Mark Leiren-Young drove into Williams Lake, British Columbia, in 1985 to work as a reporter for the venerable Williams Lake Tribune, he arrived on the scene of an armed robbery. And that was before things got weird. For a 22-year-old from Vancouver, a stint in the legendary Cariboo town was a trip to another world and another era. From the explosive opening, where Mark finds himself in a courtroom just a few feet away from a defendant with a bomb strapped to his chest, to the case of a plane that crashed without its pilot on board, Never Shoot a Stampede Queen is an unforgettable comic memoir of a city boy learning about—and learning to love—life in a cowboy town.
About the author
Mark Leiren-Young was born in Vancouver and earned his BFA in theatre and creative writing from the University of Victoria. He is a screenwriter, playwright, performer and freelance journalist. His first book, Never Shoot a Stampede Queen, won the 2009 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. Mark’s plays have been produced throughout Canada and the US and seen in Europe and Australia. He has written articles for such publications as Time, Maclean’s and The Utne Reader and is a regular contributor to The Georgia Straight and The Tyee. Mark is also half of a satirical comedy troupe, Local Anxiety, that has released two CDs. Mark currently splits his time between Vancouver, BC, and Haiku, Maui. For more on Mark, visit www.leiren-young.com.
