I graduated from the University of California with degrees in history and political science. My family has owned a farm in North Dakota for three generations. My grandfather met and married my grandmother in Cody, Wyoming, a town founded by Buffalo Bill Cody. On one occasion, grandfather, who was a member of the town’s band, played a violin solo for Buffalo Bill. And, of course, Buffalo Bill was a close friend of Wild Bill Hickok, a prominent character in my current novel, WIDE OPEN. The most important factor in forming my impulse to write was my parents’ love of reading and history. In recent years, I wrote a number of self published books that were a valuable training ground for the eventual acceptance of WIDE OPEN by Penguin/Berkley. WIDE OPEN is historical fiction set in 1871 Abilene, Kansas. The story is based on the actual events of the legendary 1871 cattle season in Abilene, the first of the great prairie cowtowns. A tiny exotic dot of roaring humanity on the vast vacancy of the wilderness prairie, Abilene is a place in which good and evil are so evenly matched that no one knows which will triumph. In its Texastown district, recently hired marshal, James Butler Hickok, the West’s most famous gunman, struggles to control streets teeming with thousands of hostile cowboys. Violence seems a certainty, but no one expects the tragedy that ultimately unfolds. It is the story of a magnificent secret, a stunning tragedy, and the earliest days of a romance that will last 73 years. It's a bit early for reviews, but I do have a few. Here's one— "Countless novels have been written about Wild Bill Hickok and the rough cattle town of Abilene, Kansas, of the 1870s. Larry Bjornson, however, makes the story fresh, unique, and moving. WIDE OPEN is a delight, a literate story with a wonderful cast of characters, boundless energy, and a perfect sense of place and time." — Johnny D. Boggs, Spur Award-winning author of EAST OF THE BORDER and NORTHFIELD WIDE OPEN has a fairly extravagant web site at http://www.wideopennovel.com. Lots of history of the era, old photos, interesting graphics, and info on the novel.