About

Hi! I’m Andrew Pankratz! I am a novelist from rural North Carolina.  I started writing a little periodical when I was 8 or 9, and I haven’t laid down the pen since. In 2017, I decided to start writing a novel. I thought the stories I told my brothers were completely filled out, but when I put them down on paper, I saw how many details were lacking.

So I started researching, trying to learn as much as possible about the Old West and a way of life that is no more. Much of what I learned made it into my first novel, A Lone Outsider. As I wrote, the plot kept evolving until it become the full-blown conspiracy it now is.

Louis Lamour always made up his stories as he went, so I decided to do the same. When I wrote the first chapter, rustling was the only problem in view. But even then, I knew in the back of my head that it wasn’t the biggest problem. But I hadn’t hit on the real objective of the outlaws until I was about halfway through, which is why the end is unpredictable. The reader can’t see it because I didn’t even know how things where going to end up then!

When I write stories, I literally close my eyes and think about each scene until I feel like I’m there. That helps me describe the action and the characters. Once I can see it in my head, I can start churning out the words, in my effort to capture a time when people were authentic, worked hard, and stood up for what they believed.

I am currently a fulltime college student, so I have had to cut back on my fiction writing. However, I have a novel in the works that I pound away on whenever I get the chance. And I write short stories that are exclusive to my email list, which you can sign up for at the bottom of the page.

In my free time, (when I’m not writing!) I enjoy hunting, fishing, and shooting guns. If it’s rainy, then I’ll read, play guitar, or go mess with a woodworking project. I spend a lot of time at my church and with my family, because those are the two most important things in my life.

Whenever I write, I always strive to inspire people to do real things and live fuller lives. Henry Thoreau once said, “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

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