Jack Woodville London is a historian, writing instructor, and speaker who has authored articles and short stories, a non-fiction book on the craft of writing, and five novels including the award-winning French Letters trilogy. Espionage, survival, and the fight for Texas independence come into play in his newest historical fiction release, Dangerous Latitudes (Stoney Creek Publishing Group, February 2025). Look for Jack on his website JWLBooks.com, on Facebook, and his Amazon author page. For more about his writing, see his 2019 interview with SouthWest Writers.
At its heart, what is Dangerous Latitudes about?
It is the question all of us face: “When do I take a stand?” It is a coming-of-age novel set in the cloak of a historical fiction story about a young man who is forced to become a spy — for both sides.
What do you find most interesting about the time period you set your book in?
It is set in 1841–1843, a period of extraordinary violence and danger in the American Southwest and about which very little is taught, known, or written, particularly in fiction.
Who is your main character and what do you like most about him? Who is your favorite historical character in the book?
My main character may not be a him. The story centers on two people, Alexandre, a naïve young man from Louisiana who comes to the Republic of Texas to make his fame and fortune and Noeme, a young Black woman who is revealed by degrees to be …. Well, that would be giving the story away. Suffice it to say, they meet early when she rescues him and he mistakes her for a runaway slave.
My favorite historical character is a toss-up between two. One is Sam Houston, not the honorable gentleman who gallantly led Texians to victory over Mexico so much as the drunken short-tempered Sam Houston who manipulated people in a never-ending struggle to keep Mexico at bay. The other historical character is his opposite, Mexican General Antonio Canales, a scoundrel in the mold of Santa Anna who was a bit of a preening George Custer type soldier.
Tell us how Dangerous Latitudes came together.
In some ways it took longer to write than it took to earn my bachelor’s degree. I do a lot of research not only of events but of the actual historical figures who will appear. As a rule, I only invent a few fictitious characters, whose lives are tossed about by the things the actual historical figures do.
My personal editing cycle is to write a chapter, revise it, write a following chapter and revise it, write a third chapter, then revise all three together, then continue in three-chapter cycles to assure that the story has continuity. This helps me to see where I go astray in telling a story or sub-plot or have written off into the desert with something that is not essential, the nasty challenge of editing out the things that no one reads. It helps me keep track of whether a story is losing its way, or where characters are not fleshed out, or where subplots need work. By the time I finish a novel, each chapter has been edited on the order of twenty-five to thirty times and the entire manuscript at least ten times.
I am blessed to have a fine literary agent and a great relationship with a publicist from my earlier work. They arranged and negotiated with the eventual publisher, Stoney Creek Publishing.
What makes this novel unique in the historical fiction market?
It is set in a time and place where, to the best of my knowledge, only one other work of historical fiction has been written. I’m confident that there are more, but they sure don’t seem to surface when you look for them. So, it is a story that involves historic cross-border clashes (and violence) about which almost nothing is written, larger than life figures such as Sam Houston but with their warts and all on full display, race relations and challenging gender assumptions, all in the middle of events that actually happened. It mirrors a lot of what is happening today but set almost two hundred years ago.
Any “Oh, wow!” moments while doing research for the book?
The discovery on original maps of things that I knew little or nothing about. For example, while Texas claimed its boundary to be the Rio Grande River all the way into present-day Colorado, official Texas maps of the period show the boundary to be the Nueces River about halfway between San Antonio and the Rio Grande. There was nothing in Texas, nothing, between Austin-San Antonio and present-day El Paso (which did not exist) except large bold letters that said, “Range of the Comanche.”
What was your favorite part of putting this project together?
Devising a story that would bring together people, both from 1840s Mexico and Texas, to a land that was so desolate that neither side could control it, and place them into events that actually happened. It forces the question that all novelists must ask and answer repeatedly: “Why would they do that?”
Why did you choose Dangerous Latitudes as the book’s title?
It connotes several things. The main man character is a surveyor who is deceived to come to Texas to map a boundary that Texas doesn’t control — the Rio Grande. His map-quest, if you will, leads him into more and more dangerous geographical latitudes. But the word ‘latitudes’ also may apply to the circumstances in which the characters are forced to choose whether to do the safe thing or to go well outside anyone’s comfort zone to do something that they do not want to do or even believe they can do. I like titles that are plays on words.
What sort of decisions did you make about portraying historical figures or events in order for your book to work?
None. I wrote them as best I could as history (not Disney or Wikipedia) reveals them to have been. That made the choices easy, because in almost every case what made them historical figures at all was that in every good person there is a little bit of evil and in every bad person there is some good. I just looked for it and applied it.
What do you consider the most essential elements of a well-written historical novel?
I think every reader decides whether to read a book (or buy it) based on her/his assessment of 1) what it’s about, 2) who is in it, and 3) where the reader comes in.
So, as a writer, be honest about writing in a way that makes readers see themselves as one of the characters or, at the least, makes them feel they’re in the room where it happened. Give one or more main character an experience of undeserved misfortune, especially if it can be experienced at the hands of the antagonist who causes it or who tries to take advantage of it. Another essential element is an opening sentence or paragraph that, to say what I learned from Joe Badal, grabs the reader by the throat. My way to say that is write an opening sentence or paragraph that is so good it lives up to the book that follows it. Write the book first.
Who are your favorite authors, and what do you admire most about their writing?
Evelyn Waugh: His prose is very efficient and makes me generate my own images from his words of the people, the places, the situations he writes about. Hilary Mantel: Her historical fiction is the gold standard for translating research into the creation of characters who act as they do, who make the decisions they make. Rick Atkinson, in non-fiction: His trilogy of the Second World War in Europe is a master class in threading the needle between developing the characters of individuals, most of them ordinary soldiers or sailors who were caught up in a war over which they had little control, and yet threading them into the stories of the major events of the war, such as the American invasion of North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. He somehow succeeds in making units into characters rather than a numbing series of unit numbers. I could go on but won’t.
What advice do you have for beginning or discouraged writers?
Ask yourself, and remind yourself, how many times did the Beatles play in Hamburg and in the Cavern Club before they were discovered and got a recording deal? Be a Beatle.
What writing projects are you working on now?
Editing a non-fiction academic work I have written that has been bought by the University of Oklahoma Press. It addresses a very great deal of the history of the Rio Grande River through New Mexico and Colorado between 1599 and 1846.
KL Wagoner loves creating worlds of fantasy and science fiction. Her current work in progress is The Last Bonekeeper fantasy trilogy and short stories in the same universe. A member of SouthWest Writers since 2006, Kat has worked as the organization’s secretary, newsletter editor, website manager, and author interview coordinator. Kat is also a veteran, a martial art student, and a grandmother. Visit her at klwagoner.com.
