Cotton Smith is a right-brain guy. He paints. He draws. He develops creative ad and marketing campaigns. He has written poetry, plays, short...
Right Brain Overload
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Western Books
He Speaks the Language
Larry Jay Martin did a lot of living before settling down and getting serious about his writing career. “I’ve been plane wrecked, car wrecked, boat...
He Speaks the Language
Larry Jay Martin did a lot of living before settling down and getting serious about his writing career. “I’ve been plane wrecked, car wrecked, boat...
Celebrating Pioneer Women
Ida May and Edith Eudora Ammon homesteaded in North Dakota in the 1880s, expecting their venture to be a lark. They intended proving up, getting...
Following the Hawks
For years, novelist Win Blevins honed his storytelling skills by creating characters and events in Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park for his youngest son...
Rough-hewn Character
Midnight. Euless, Texas. John McCord holds forth in Denny’s Restaurant with a tale about the day he and Jack Ballas did a book signing somewhere in...
Man Afraid of His Wife
Cherokee novelist Robert J. Conley is perhaps best known for busting stereotypes in traditional Western fiction. What may be surprising, however, is...
Arguing with His Characters
John Duncklee is one of a kind, a renaissance Westerner from hat to boots. Whether he’s working as a teacher, author, horse breeder or cattle...
A Pineapple-Coconut Pie Kind of Guy
Since third grade, Johnny Boggs has been making up stories. Of course for True West, he sticks to the facts. And as regular readers already know, he...
Western Treasure Hunter
Research is the reason I find historical novels a joy to write,” says Michelle Black. “I have loved research since my law school days. It’s like a...
No Substitute for a Romping Good Story
With his deep voice and lean hawklike look, Western novelist Matt Braun could be one of the Old West lawmen or cowboys that populate his novels....
Writing with Cold Feet
Writers of nonfiction spend countless hours researching, but few are as dedicated about it as historical novelist James Alexander Thom. Not only...