A new collection of short fiction from members of the Western Writers of America offers a dramatic and stirring portrait of the American West and the colorful characters who transformed a nation. Reprint.
Stories of the American west from the oft-overlooked perspective of Native Americans, women, Hispanics, Asians, and Mormons place traditional genre elements of gunplay and gold strikes in a realistic context.
Once, there was a world where the heroes were defined by their white clothing and the bad guys always wore black. The town sheriff always gunned down the wild gunslinger while the lady in distress cowered. The Indian was to be feared, not understood, and the white man always saved the day. This was the traditional Western.
But times change, as did the Western. The evolving Western is told from the point of view of blacks, Native Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Jews, Gentiles, Mormons, Catholics, women, and men. It is about America; it is about life. Whether a story's central element is a hangman or a midwife, a piano or a cowboy who hates tomatoes, you may be certain of one thing, if the tale reflects an expanding continent, it reflects the American West.
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