Silverado Press–the imprint that Howard Weinstein and I have launched through writers’ collective Crazy 8 Press–is getting all kinds of…well, press, lately. Here’s an interview with me that ran in the current issue of True West magazine (in which I also review a book–my first review for TW).
And below is a piece that just ran in Roundup, the official magazine of the Western Writers of America–the foremost organization of Western writers in the world. (I have two book reviews in this issue–I’m like Roy Kent, I’m everywhere!)
Last, but certainly not least, I was invited to contribute a story to an anthology called Six-Gun Legends, edited by Jim Beard and John C. Bruening. The concept is that each story features a character that everybody’s heard of–a legend, in other words–and what happens when that character shows up in the flesh. My character is called The Widowmaker. This is how he’s introduced in “Dead Man Walking,” my story:
He had hoped his sole prisoner was still sleeping off last night’s drunk. Schumacher’s voice carried, and Daly wondered if LaFlamme had heard the message. Even if he had, he might not have understood it. But every law dog in the Southwest knew what it meant when the Widowmaker came to town.
Somebody died. Multiple somebodies on occasion, but at least one. T.J. Daly had dealt with hired guns a time or three, but the Widowmaker was something else entirely. If the stories were even half true, he was a one-man army, and when he had a target in his sights, that target fell no matter what. He carried a gold-plated pocket gun, and he was a dead shot with it.
The tales couldn’t be more than half true, though, and probably not even that. If they were, somebody would have brought him to justice. Posses would have assembled, soldiers mustered, something. The West was well on its way to being settled, civilized, and the kind of violence attributed to the Widowmaker couldn’t be allowed.
The book contains other terrific stories by great writers, some of them friends and some I’ve never encountered before. If you like riveting Western action tales linked by a creative concept, give this one a try. It’s from Flinch Books, and you won’t regret it!
Thanks for the amazing shout-out, Jeff!
You’re welcome, Jim! Thanks for inviting me into the book!