This is a newspaper profile of Clee Woods, a prolific western author, originally published in the Santa Fe New Mexican.
By ALICE BULLOCK
Clee Woods, Albuquerque western and travel writer, is overlooking some darned good material in his writing. Himself. He isn’t an easy man to Interview for a profile. Not that he isn’t cooperative and easy to talk with — he Is. He’s Just interested in so many other things that it’s difficult to keep him on the subject of Clee Woods longer than two minutes.
Was he born in the west? Yes — in the mountains of West Virginia but was pretty difficult for a growing boy to learn to be a good cowhand with a herd of one mild cow. He had to take out his longings in reading and he did. He is still an omnivorous reader.
He attended Alderson Baptist Academy and was one of their prize runners, did a little teaching then went on to Marshall College. World War I came and instead of going west — of Virginia — he I went to France as a soldier. When his feet hit U. S. soil, upon his return, they just kept traveling until he reached Denver.
This reporter Is not quite clear about his sojourn in Denver and the University there. He must have functioned as both a student and a teacher at this school. It was as a student in DU that the writing urge began to bear fruit, for he sold his first three stories while in school.
About this time, Universal Pictures promoted a contest for writers, and Clee won second place with a story called “Flying Hoofs,” a western yarn with a New Mexico setting. It was produced as a movie.
It was while teaching creative writing at the University of Denver that he became aware of the pretty young girl who always sat on the front row and never, but never, missed a class. She seemed to thrive under his tutelage and it wasn’t long before she was persuaded to sign up for a life scholarship. This pretty girl was Betty Woods, known for her feature, Trip of the Month, a regular page in New Mexico Magazine for years.
While in Denver, Clee and Betty attended one of the Dave Raffelock writer’s workshops at nearby Indian Hills.
A guest speaker at this event was Mary Austin. In a private conversation with Mrs. Justin during the workshop, he told her about his dreams of writing.
“I’ll do westerns, travel articles, that kind of thing until I am financially able to work In the real literary field,” he told her. “Do you approve of this approach to writing?”
“My dear man,” she answered, “that is the same as i saying you’ll be a literary woman of the streets until you have made a fortune, then you’ll turn respectable I”
Clee doesn’t say whether he’s still intent on “respectability” or not, but he has sold over twelve million words as a free lance article and short story writer, and has five books with his name on the title page.
Well — really only four. One of the books, a favorite with him, carries the name Lee Forest. He dropped the “C” to arrive at “Lee,” and it takes Woods to make a Forest!
He is frequently called upon as a technical adviser and writer on location for Universal movies — his own material or that of other western writers.
He is presently hard at work on a book about the very colorful Luis Terrazas, once governor of Chihuahua — a man who used private pullman cars to drop his children off at schools and owned 750,000 head of cattle plus 200,000 mules and horses.
He has taught writing at seven or eight universities, Including Hardin Simmons and the University of New Mexico as well as Denver U.
Clee and Betty, while making their home in Albuquerque, travel around the American continent rather extensively. He does all of his own photography, using a 4 x 5 Speed Graphic for color, as well as National Graflex and Rolliflex cameras. Betty does photography too, but grins impishly as she cuddles her own Yashika.
Both have appeared in all sorts of national publications, enjoy traveling and camping out, writing, and each other. They are an exceedingly nice couple to know.