I was a big reader of Zane Grey as a young boy, and so horses and the West figured large in my imagination.
In 1977, I wrote a series of poems about a character, Black Bart, a former cattle rustler-turned-alchemist. A good friend, Claude Purdy, who is a stage director, suggested I turn the poems into a play.
You'd look out and there'd be little babies watching the show, and boys and girls. They loved the cowboys, and they loved Annie. There were young people seeing the show for the first time. I stayed for two years because I enjoyed it so much.
I always knew I wanted to do a Western. And trying to think of what that would be, I always figured that if I did a Western, it would have a lot of the aesthetics of Spaghetti Westerns, because I really like them.
'The Sisters Brothers' has endeared so many prize juries because the Western format has more of a broad appeal and is familiar to readers.
I have turned down soaps operas. I want to be outside, and I want to have the gun. It is cowboys and Indians to me.
I've always wanted to do a Western.
I directed a movie back in the '90s which had calf roping in it, and I got into it quite a bit back then.
I watched Westerns from the time I was a girl. My dad was a big Western fan. I always loved Clint Eastwood movies and 'Westworld', where the guy gets trapped in a western-themed amusement park. The western motif was fascinating to me.
