Me.

My name is Glen Zediker. I can put a "D." in there when I sign my name or when there's anything printed bearing my likeness. I didn't go to three or more names or any hyphens (the hallmark of really bad poets or first-, and last-, time literary hacks).

You may have seen my name attached here to there in magazines and in company representation on a few books on shooting. I was raised on a ranch near a very dusty very little town in Western Colorado. I live now in Mississippi near Oxford. I got started in shooting as a kid but never really took up too well with junior programs. I didn't really get "into" competitive shooting until later in life when, in retrospect, I could decide on my own sport and get my own equipment (I'm like that). I hold a High Master classification in NRA High Power Rifle and am proud I attained that using a Service Rifle. I have a degree from Ole Miss in English (which certifies me to butcher the language as freely as I do because I know better). I was a member of Sigma Tau Delta, which is an English honor society, and have collected a variety of accolades from work done outside technically oriented writing venues (but I promise not to quote poetry). I will never be a member of the Outdoor Writer's Guild or let myself be called a "gun writer" because that's not at all how I see myself (and it's not the company I want to keep). I don't have a clue how many things I've had published but it's in the hundreds, considering that the majority of work I do is outside the shooting sports.

I got my start in the publishing business as a golf pro, and if that sounds peculiar, lemmesplain: I liked to teach more than anything, and I had developed my interest in writing from my late and great Uncle George and high school English teacher, Mary Delsrude. I putted like Godzilla, so given the happenstance of an illness in the family that required my attention for a couple of years, I gave up the golf profession and decided to enroll at Ole Miss. Decided there that I'd write for a living, or at least for a career. (Writing is one of the very few professions where one never has to actually make any money, or even finish anything for that matter, and still be looked upon as having a legitimate occupation.)

Not only was I one of the elder underclassmen at this fine (really...) school, I think I was among the very few without a BMW, but the rest of that part will be saved for more stories.

Anyhow, the short version of the long story is that I was graduated (I learned to say it that corrected way, so tuition, I'm thinking, was a bargain) and went to work with a start up upstart golf magazine run by two idjut galoots (and that there is a bundle of story potential for other times). These folks, I'll call them Dumb and Numb, nearly drove the publication into the ground, but before that happened I learned to work with professional "knowers" as a professional "doer." These folks I worked with on behalf of the magazine, mostly PGA and LPGA touring professionals, had a tremendous amount of knowledge to go along with their awesome skills, but ran into difficulty relaying that knowledge to others such that people could use it to improve their own golf games. I'm not at all knocking any of these pros because I'd rather just be good any day than have to be able to tell why, but I found that a lot of them didn't really know what it was that they did that made them so good. That is where and how my prior professional background came in: I could look and see what they did and knew enough about it to ask the right questions.

I'd rather be able to just do something rather than only know about it, but what it is that I "just do" is know... I've said a few different times that I do not (in no way) ever claim to know everything, but I claim to know those who do, and, more importantly, I know what and how to ask them about it so I can bridge it on through to whoever reads my stuff. That, in a droplet, is me and what I do (or at least how I see it).

To the man (or woman) all these pros credited me with making them look like wizards in print, and now I'm bragging, but why not -- our readers said that mine was the best golf instruction they'd ever read, and that, to me, was saying something considering that there are (vicinity) 4000 books written on golf. The pros also commented to me that I was the first writer they'd ever worked with who really understood anything they talked about, let alone be able to dissect their answers into more questions, and then reassemble that into more detailed answers. I think I was also the first writer they'd worked with who could break par.

"Write about what you know." That was told to me by every writing instructor I ever had, and squeezed in somewhere into every book or article I ever read on the topic. I knew golf, and I knew how to write. I, therefore, wrote about golf. Well, I also know shooting.

After Numb and Dumb at the magazine angered me to the point I could no longer work for them, I carted myself off to start my own publishing business. I went with shooting because, mostly, there wasn't anyone doing it. It amazed me that there were as many competitive shooters as there were (and still are) and yet no one had considered, or at least done, a good book with a championship level shooter telling all about how and what he did to win championships.

Working with shooters is the same as working with golfers, or working with anyone who does something well enough that others want to learn from -- ask the right questions, understand the answers well enough to ask some more questions, and then go home and write it all up. Then take some photographs that are germaine to the topic, and also attractive, and then design and lay out the bookso it looks nice (and is nice) to read.

It's a simple thing, from my perspective. I've had the good fortune to have developed some good associations with people like David Tubb and also to have had unwavering support from a few folks who inspired and encouraged me all along.

The one thing I can do differently from some "name" shooter is provide different perspectives. When you read a book by David Tubb, you get (and expect to get) his opinion and advice on his equipment and techniques. That's a wonderful thing. Only a moron would pass on information offered by the likes of David. However, and I could be paraphrasing this from his book Highpower Rifle so certainly it's not being said as a knock, everyone needs to find his or her own way. David experiments continually, and, continually, he's keeping, changing, throwing out, and modifying again some elements of shooting technique and equipment. That means he's learning for himself. See, we need to listen to people like David because he, obviously, knows how to shoot really high scores, but what we really need to listen to is their assessment of the "process" that led to the championships. That process will be filled with a series of trials and errors, sometimes following a plan, sometimes not, but there nonetheless. I get the opportunity to gain different perspectives since I work with different people, and since I work (continually) on myself.

One reason, by the way, that I don't stay as much "up" on some minor things as do others in my profession is simply because I am always trying to shoot higher scores my own self! Simply put: I don't have time or inclination to mess with things that don't look to be in my best interests. That's why some people seem shocked that I haven't tried every bullet, powder, cleaning goop, or whathaveyou, but I'm trying to find the best thing for me to use, and when I get a hold of what I think that is, it has to be disproven (and usually by others) before I'll head that direction and decide for myself. For instance, I was really happy with old fashioned gun powder until I had heard enough folks going on about Viht. Then I tried it to see for myself. I, however, felt no tug to try it when it first hit the market. I, so to speak, try to "clean up" after some of these folks and then hand it on over to you. That's the best service I can do, in my mind, in helping the most folks the most.

Aside from anything in the above that might matter, things that really don't matter include that I also used to race motorcycles because I couldn't afford to race cars. I was fairly fast and just et it up -- lived for it. I hurt myself many times and it still hurts. But it sure was fun. I'm a big auto racing in general and supercross spectator; Formula One is my favorite. I grew up on a cattle ranch in a really little, really dusty town called Grand Valley in western Colorado. We were known primarily for our speed trap. There was, at that time, one paved street and that was Highway 6&24. We didn't have to climb a pole to answer the telephone, but we didn't have to dial a prefix to talk to a neighbor. I didn't have television until 1968 and then we had one channel that went off the air after the ten o'clock news. It's a wonder I ever learned to operate a computer.

I'm through talking about myself now since anything more you want to know about me is likely to be answered through things I publish elsewhere. If you want to know anything else about me you can ask. Otherwise, mind your own damn bidness (sorry, but I still have a heaping helping of western Colorado standoffishness to filter my spells of coziness and cooperation).