John Clayton

John Clayton is an independent journalist, essayist, and corporate ghostwriter based in Red Lodge. John's major book, The Cowboy Girl, is a biography of the Montana/Wyoming novelist, journalist, and homesteader Caroline Lockhart. It relies on archival materials not available to Lockhart's previous biographers. John's research -- in Cody, Lovell, Billings, the Dryhead, Laramie, Helena, Kansas, Illinois, Boston, and Glacier National Park -- was supported by grants from the Montana Committee for the Humanities and the Matthew Hansen endowment at the University of Montana.

John's next project is a narrative history of the Teton Dam disaster, a 1976 flood that marked a significant change in environmental policy in the American West. It is currently scheduled for publication in late 2009 by Riverbend.

John has taught at Rocky Mountain College and is on the advisory board for the Montana Center for the Book. One of his favorite annual events is the Montana Festival of the Book in Missoula.