Natural Stories

The official myths

What jackalopes say about the American West

May 5 • John Clayton

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April 2026

Why I won't compete with AI on flattery

The weird tension between Wonderlandscape and its biggest fans

Apr 28 • John Clayton

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Trust me, I’m reporting on myself

Telling true stories in an unsupervised age

Apr 21 • John Clayton

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13

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“Is that the Unabomber?”

Thirty years of change in Montana

Apr 14 • John Clayton

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The artist at play

Montana's Chuck Ringer

Apr 7 • John Clayton

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March 2026

A Rivet Runs Through It

An April Fools literary parody

Mar 31 • John Clayton

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The detective novel as failed Western

Rex Stout, Montana, and the emotionally suppressed origins of Nero Wolfe

Mar 24 • John Clayton

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The "Forest Fire" at the end of Western individualism

The lurid overtones of a 1933 novel hid its cultural critique

Mar 17 • John Clayton

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Why the first gay Western came from a straight Easterner more interested in ideas than romance

The noble failure of Rex Stout’s Forest Fire

Mar 10 • John Clayton

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3

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A trail-centric map of Yellowstone

Alice Morris’ 1917 challenge to cartography

Mar 4 • John Clayton

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February 2026

Celebrating Yellowstone's 1872 moment

When Congress stumbled into public lands law

Feb 25 • John Clayton

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Sinclair Lewis’ Yellowstone frontier

America’s first big writer in America’s national park

Feb 18 • John Clayton

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