Ranching, Westerns, and Writing

Welcome to Women Honoring the West!
I met Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer through a mutual friend a few years ago. One thing I’ve learned about this young woman is she is a literary force to be reckoned with. She’s creative, entrepreneurial, and oh, so sweet. I can’t wait for you to meet her.
So let’s get to our Q&A session.
What is your ranching background?
I grew up in a small, country town with a population of under 5,000. While I loved all the TV Westerns and movies growing up, I wasn’t able to have my own horse and cattle while I was young, but I did spend 10 years in 4-H. Horses and agriculture were big focuses for me, and some of my best childhood and young adult memories are of horse judging competitions and going to rodeos.
Today, my mama and I have 5 acres. We had a few cows for a time, but because of the size of the property, we shifted to sheep ranching. We grass fed 20 lambs for seven months on the property and wow, what that did to regenerate the native grasses! We’re excited to eventually run sheep full-time on our little “ranchstead.”
What attracts you the most about the Western lifestyle?
Honestly, the smells. Yes! Hay, manure, horse flesh, sunbaked pasture grasses, arena dirt. It’s a connection to nature and another way of life. Smells bring the Western lifestyle from the silver screen into something I can experience in a powerfully sensory way.
What is the inspiration behind the book, song, poem, art, or photography you’re working on?
My Doc Beck Westerns series was inspired by my childhood of growing up watching all the old Westerns with my daddy, combined with my Native heritage (I’m a tribal member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma). I wanted to create a Western series where the “Indians” were the main characters. That led to me creating a series with an Omaha Indian woman doctor who travels the West in the 1890s. Her character was inspired by Dr. Susan LaFleche Picotte, who is credited as the first Indian woman doctor. She began her practice in the 1890s.
What’s your favorite character, line, or chorus in one of your books, poems, or songs? Why?
God knows.
That is the theme line for my Choctaw Tribune series, set in Indian Territory in the 1890s. God knows is a family saying for us, so it was appropriate to make it one for the fictional Choctaw family in my series. Those two words fit every scene and scenario in some way so it typically shows up at least once or twice in every book of that series.
What’s your favorite ranch animal and why?
Horses. Though we don’t have the property or time to own a horse, our neighbors do, and I love when the horses go at full gallop to the barn at feeding time. Nothing quite like the thunder of hooves.
What are you working on next?
Books 10, 11, and 12 of the Doc Beck Westerns series and book 6 in the Choctaw Tribune series. I also teach authors how to dictate their novels, and I have a course for authors on how to accurately and respectfully write Native American characters in their stories. Authors can discover more at fictioncourses.com
About Sarah
SARAH ELISABETH SAWYER is a story archaeologist. She digs up shards of past lives, hopes, and truths, and pieces them together for readers today. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian honored her as a literary artist through their Artist Leadership Program for her work in preserving Choctaw Trail of Tears stories. She is the creator of the Fiction Writing: American Indians digital course. (fictioncourses.com/americanindians)
Sarah has written and published 17 historical fiction books, and over 275 non-fiction articles on Native artists and organizations with representatives from dozens of North American tribes. Her narrative biography of a Native WWI hero, “Otis W. Leader: The Ideal American Doughboy,” was awarded the 2024 Oklahoma Book Award for nonfiction. It was also selected to represent the state of Oklahoma for the Library of Congress’s 2024 National Book Festival in Washington, DC.
A tribal member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, she writes from her hometown in Texas, partnering with her mother, Lynda Kay Sawyer, in continued research for future works.
Learn more at ChoctawSpirit.com, SarahElisabethWrites.com and Facebook.com/SarahElisabethSawyer
Wasn’t this Q&A fun?
Sarah loves to hear from readers. What would you like to know more about?
Fun interview. I met Sarah through her course for authors on how to accurately and respectfully write Native American characters. It was a great course. Thank you for being so willing to help authors.
Thank you, Paty! I appreciate being connected with you and Carmen, you have such big hearts for the West and its people.