The Tenacity of the West—and the Western

A year ago, I  asked the question: “Will the Western survive?” I was concerned, and rightfully so, with the anti-Western sentiment of many if not most of the New York publishing houses; the reduced number of 19th-century West monographs from university imprints; and the shuttering of Five Star’s Western and Frontier Fiction imprint.  From my desk in Prescott, Arizona, the Western landscape seemed drought-stricken and maybe the fiction and nonfiction “climate changers” were going to