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Monday, November 26, 2018

ANDREW McBRIDE interviewed by SCOTT HARRIS about his novel THE PEACEMAKER, westerns etc.

I’ve been fortunate enough to receive wide acclaim already for my Sundown Press novel THE PEACEMAKER. Of 25 reviews and ratings 2 are 4 star, 23 5 star! This includes 5 star reviews from 2 of the most successful western authors. Spur award-winning and Pulitzer Prize-nominated author ROBERT VAUGHAN describes it as ‘a great book’. Meanwhile RALPH COTTON (also a Pulitzer-prize nominated novelist) writes: ‘For pure writing style, McBride’s gritty prose nails the time and place of his story with bold authority. …this relatively new author has thoroughly, and rightly so, claimed his place among the top Old West storytellers.’ I’m very grateful to both Robert and Ralph for their fantastic support.

I was recently interviewed by acclaimed western author SCOTT HARRIS for his ‘Friday Forum’ blog, which you can find here. https://scottharriswest.com/forum-featuring-andrew-mcbride/

I talk about westerns and my writing, including THE PEACEMAKER. Scott very kindly agreed to the interview appearing on the Sundown Press blog also.

Questions in bold.

1. When—and why—did you first fall in love with Westerns?

As a kid growing up in England in the 60s I fell in love with westerns watching movies and shows on TV. I was particularly taken by ‘The High Chaparral’ TV series, its Arizona location photography and the background of the Apache Wars, which sparked a life-long interest in Native American history and culture.

(I’ve given a fuller appreciation of ‘The High Chaparral’ on the Sundown Press blog: https://sundownpress.blogspot.com/2017/09/andrew-mcbride-in-praise-of-high.html)

In the 70s when I was entering adulthood I had a pal who turned me on to reading westerns, starting with the ‘McAllister’ series by MATT CHISOLM.

2. Who are your three favorite Western writers?

The first of several impossible questions you’re going to torture me with during this interview. I have to pick three out of the likes of Ralph Cotton, Fred Grove, Louis L’Amour, Glendon Swarthout, Robert MacLeod, A. B. Guthrie Jnr., Lewis B. Patten, Jack Schaefer, Dorothy M. Johnson, Charles Neider etc.? Three who I followed fairly slavishly when I was cutting my teeth on reading westerns were WILL HENRY, GORDON SHIRREFFS and MATT CHISOLM – I devoured Chisolm’s ‘McAllister’ series, and then found out he was British, which inspired me – so let’s go with those three.

3. Which Western do you wish you’d written?

‘Hondo’ by LOUIS L’AMOUR. In some ways Hondo is the template western hero and I’m sure my main character in all my westerns, Calvin Taylor, owes something to him. Once, to warm myself up for a writing project, I re-wrote the first chapter of ‘Hondo’ and then had to stop myself from re-writing the whole novel! I think that would be an interesting exercise for another Scott Harris-helmed ’52 weeks’ project – get us lesser mortals to follow in the footsteps of the greats and re-write, in our own words, a chapter from a classic western novel.

4. What is the most recent Western you’ve read?

I read a few recently that didn’t happen for me so I’m not going to mention them. I also re-read some old favourites. The most recent ‘new’ western I read and liked was ‘Geronimo must die’ by J.R. LINDERMUTH.
(You can find ‘Geronimo must die’ – published by Sundown Press – here https://www.amazon.com/Geronimo-Must-Die-J-Lindermuth-ebook/dp/B06XFZJG5H/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

and here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Geronimo-Must-Die-J-Lindermuth-ebook/dp/B06XFZJG5H/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=)

5. The “Desert Island” question.
What are your three favorite Western books?

Impossible to say – but as you’ve cornered me I’ll play along. ‘Little Big Man’ by THOMAS BERGER, which deals with tragic events and yet manages to be extremely funny in places, and has subtleties the film lacks;

‘Blood Brother’ by ELLIOTT ARNOLD, which deals with the Apache chief Cochise and had a huge influence on my writing, particularly ‘The Peacemaker’;

and ‘The Buffalo Soldiers’ by JOHN PREBBLE which tackles numerous western clichés in a startling and original way. I don’t think you’ll find a better written western. And Prebble was also a Brit!

(Read my post about ‘The Buffalo Soldiers’ on the Sundown Press blog: https://sundownpress.blogspot.com/2018/09/andrew-mcbride-on-how-buffalo-soldiers.html )

What are your three favorite Western movies?
Even more unanswerable than the ‘3 books’ question. But as John Wayne and John Ford were, IMHO, the two most important people in western movie history one would have to be a combination of their talents. Which boils down to a wrestling match between ‘Stagecoach’ and ‘Fort Apache’ – I think I’ll go for ‘Fort Apache’.

John Wayne and Henry Fonda in ‘Fort Apache’ (1948)

‘Ride the High Country’ for its elegiac quality and the wonderful performances of Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea.

Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea in ‘Ride the High Country’ (1962)

‘Hombre’ which is based on a great ELMORE LEONARD novel that almost made it into my ‘best 3 books’ list.

Paul Newman in ‘Hombre’ (1967)

A while back I posted on the Sundown Press blog about how ‘Hombre’ – both book and film – influenced my writing: https://sundownpress.blogspot.com/2017/07/giveaway-andrew-mcbride-on-how-book-and.html

6. Of the books you’ve written, which is your favorite—and why?

THE PEACEMAKER. I like all my first five published books, but they were of necessity short, which meant they had to be action-centric, dependent on a fast pace. With a longer book like THE PEACEMAKER I could slow down a bit, spend more time on character and atmosphere. I got to play around with a real historical person – in this case Cochise. I was able to write a proper love story. I could provide what John Ford called ‘grace notes’ in his movies, quiet, reflective bits where not much happens but they give the story added texture and depth. I was very grateful to my publishers for letting me do that.

7. What is the most recent Western you’ve written?
The most recent western item I’ve finished is my short story ‘Spectres at the Feast’ which you were kind enough to include in your excellent ‘The Shot Rang Out’ anthology.

(‘The Shot Rang Out’ also features an excellent short story by PRP writer/editor CHERYL PIERSON. I review the book here: https://andrewmcbrideauthor.blogspot.com/2018/05/my-review-of-shot-rang-out-by-scott.html)

8. Can you tell us anything about your next book?
I’m going through a slightly frustrating time at the moment. I have one project that won’t die! In other words it’s proving difficult to finish it off. I’m stalled on several others, waiting for responses from publishers etc. I did make a start on a new western, which has an elegiac, end-of-the-west quality and I’m keen to get stuck into it, but tidying up other projects keeps preventing me from having a clear run at it.
9. If you could go back in time, what would be the time and place in the Old West you’d like to have lived in for a year?
I’d only want to pop back for a few hours. I’m an Alamo buff, so I’d love to solve the eternal mystery of what happened there on the morning of March 6^th 1836, particularly to Davy Crockett. However, if I did find myself in the middle of the final assault on the Alamo I’d like to be both invisible and invulnerable, to avoid all the bullets, cannon balls and bayonets in the neighbourhood!

10. Is there a question you’d wish I asked?
The answer?

No. Answering questions 2 and 5 was traumatic enough!

BLURB for THE PEACEMAKER:

Eighteen-year-old scout Calvin 'Choctaw' Taylor believes he can handle whatever life throws his way. He’s been on his own for several years, and he only wants to make his mark in the world. When he is asked to guide peace emissary Sean Brennan and his adopted Apache daughter, Nahlin, into a Chiricahua Apache stronghold, he agrees—but then has second thoughts. He’s heard plenty about the many ways the Apache can kill a man. But Mr. Brennan sways him, and they begin the long journey to find Cochise—and to try to forge a peace and an end to the Indian Wars that have raged for so long. During the journey, Choctaw begins to understand that there are some things about himself he doesn’t like—but he’s not sure what to do about it. Falling in love with Nahlin is something he never expected—and finds hard to live with. The death and violence, love for Nahlin and respect for both Cochise and Mr. Brennan, have a gradual effect on Choctaw that change him. But is that change for the better? Can he live with the things he’s done to survive in the name of peace?

EXTRACT:
Choctaw blinked sweat and sunspots out of his eyes and began to lower the field glasses; then he glimpsed movement.

He used the glasses again, scanning nearer ground, the white sands. He saw nothing.

And then two black specks were there suddenly, framed against the dazzling white. They might have dropped from the sky.

They grew bigger. Two horsebackers coming this way, walking their mounts. As he watched they spurted into rapid movement, whipping their ponies into a hard run towards him.

The specks swelled to the size of horses and men. Men in faded smocks maybe once of bright colour, their long hair bound by rags at the temple. They had rifles in their hands.

Breath caught in Choctaw’s throat. Fear made him dizzy. His arms started to tremble. He knew who was coming at him so fast.

Apaches.

And you killed them or they killed you.

****

To buy THE PEACEMAKER visit Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/Peacemaker-Andrew-McBride-ebook/dp/B01GZFKAPI/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Or Amazon.co.uk: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Peacemaker-Andrew-McBride-ebook/dp/B01GZFKAPI/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1473952196&sr=8-1

Monday, September 24, 2018

ANDREW McBRIDE on how THE BUFFALO SOLDIERS by JOHN PREBBLE inspired his novel THE PEACEMAKER

One of the biggest influences on me, writing THE PEACEMAKER and my other western novels, was THE BUFFALO SOLDIERS by JOHN PREBBLE which I re-read recently.

John Prebble (1915-2001) was (like me) an Englishman who wrote westerns. His short story ‘My Great Aunt Appearing Day’ was turned into the 1955 movie ‘White Feather.’

Robert Wagner and Jeffrey Hunter in ‘White Feather’

But he also wrote thrillers, some distinguished histories of Scotland, one of which was made into the acclaimed 1964 documentary ‘Culloden,’

and co-wrote the screenplay of the epic movie ‘Zulu,’ also 1964.

Michael Caine in ‘Zulu’

His novel ‘The Buffalo Soldiers’ is the story of Lt. Garrett Byrne, a white officer commanding a patrol of black troopers of the 10^th U.S. Cavalry – the so-called ‘buffalo soldiers’ - in Oklahoma c. 1869. He is tasked with escorting a party of Comanches living on the reservation on a buffalo hunt; then, when they turn renegade and flee into the wilderness of the Texas Staked Plains, of hunting them down.

This is the most un-western western I’ve ever read – as well as being one of the best. Although it deals with wildly familiar subject matter – the U.S. Cavalry versus the Indians, the Texas Rangers, Comancheros etc. – I’d defy anybody to find a cliché in the entire book. Prebble, as an outsider, seems to have no pre-conditioning about the Old West. All aspects are looked at with a fresh eye, particularly his startling depiction of the Texas Rangers. This is partly through absolutely authenticity, shown by small, convincing details, (down to using brandy to treat gum sores,) partly through complex characterisation.

These are flawed, ambiguous individuals. We can see heroism behind the cavalrymen, rangers and Comanches, but also obstinacy, cruelty and confusion. Byrne is no lantern-jawed idealist. He’s a middle-aged loner, unhandsome, socially awkward and makes mistakes – including some very bad ones. Born in Ireland, he’s struggled to escape the hatred that his father tried to instil in him – but then he finds himself hating the Comanches, something that drives and tortures him through the second half of the book.

This is a realistic – and therefore hard-hitting – novel, with elements of tragedy. There’s one chapter I find particularly tough to read. But the writing is superb. Prebble has the absolute knack (which he shares with the likes of A.B. Guthrie Jnr.) of capturing vast cinematic landscapes concisely and vividly. ‘The set of the sun revealed a long tableland in the far west, an indigo pencil-stroke between the red of the sky and the yellow grass.’ ‘The whole plain was miraculous, an ocean of grass moving against the far escarpments, and a wind rushing ceaselessly.’

‘The Buffalo Soldiers’ throws up a portrait of tragic racial conflict and issues, asking questions that the world is still trying to answer. Revisiting it, I realised the book was a tremendous influence on me. Stimulating, disturbing and powerful, it never loses its humanity even when showing humanity at its worst.

Some of the background to THE BUFFALO SOLDIERS:

Formed in 1866 the 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 24th and 25th Infantry were the U.S. army units comprised of black enlisted men and white officers. Their nickname may have originated with Plains Indians - buffalo hunting tribes. ("We called them 'buffalo soldiers' because they had curly, kinky hair... like bisons.")

Buffalo soldiers, a 10th Cavalry chaplain observed, 'are possessed of the notion that the coloured people of the whole country are more or less affected by their performance in the Army.'

These regiments enjoyed high re-enlistment rates and - in contrast to much of the frontier army - low desertion rates.

In 1874 General Sherman said of them: ‘They are good troops, they make first-rate sentinels, are faithful to their trust, and are as brave as the occasion calls for.’

Despite this, black regiments were the subject of what Robert M. Utley, in ‘Frontier Regulars’ calls ‘searing racial prejudice.’ Utley writes: ‘The black regiments endured discrimination in both the quantity and quality of supplies, equipment and horses, and for 25 years they remained without relief in the most disagreeable sectors of the frontier.’

Buffalo soldiers have featured in film westerns like John Ford’s ‘SERGEANT RUTLEDGE’ (1960.)

On TV they were featured in shows like ‘THE HIGH CHAPARRAL’ (‘The Buffalo Soldiers’, ‘Ride the Savage Land.’)

High Chaparral episode: ‘Ride the Savage Land.’

BLURB for THE PEACEMAKER:

****

To buy THE PEACEMAKER visit Amazon.com:

https://www.amazon.com/Peacemaker-Andrew-McBride-ebook/dp/B01GZFKAPI/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Or Amazon.co.uk:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Peacemaker-Andrew-McBride-ebook/dp/B01GZFKAPI/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1473952196&sr=8-1

Monday, May 28, 2018

ANDREW McBRIDE on WHAT MAKES A WESTERN A WESTERN?

As someone who has made (modest) earnings and gained some acclaim through writing westerns – and who loves the genre – I was interested in a discussion I saw recently on Social Media about ‘what makes a western a western.’ Especially when I realised that the question, which might seem easy to answer, is actually anything but.

I’m sure an initial response would be that western exists in the familiar zone of cowboys manning ranches and driving cattle to market, Native Americans facing their final conquest by the U.S. army, and settlers populating even the most remote regions of the U.S.A.; of Colt pistols and Winchester rifles, law and order finally replacing outlawry and a fastness of nomadic tribes, buffalo and beaver replaced by towns, trails, railroads and farms. What tend to be male-centric, action-heavy adventure stories dependant on the struggle between good and evil, law and lawlessness and what could be loosely defined as ‘civilisation’ and ‘savagery.’

Key elements are that the western takes place on a ‘frontier’ - that ephemeral region where densely-settled and well-policed areas gave way to sparsely settled semi-wilderness and then true wilderness peopled only by indigenous peoples. Where the furthest reaches of modern industrial civilisation met – and sometimes clashed with - supposedly more primitive societies.

But just when it seems the genre can be easily defined, it becomes amoeba-like, stretching out in all directions, shape-shifting across history, geography and even beyond the Earth!

After all, the ‘frontier’ elements I’ve described as defining the western existed elsewhere in the world, most particularly in the 19^th Century, as depicted in movies set on the South American frontier like ‘WAY OF THE GAUCHO.’

Rory Calhoun and Richard Boone in WAY OF THE GAUCHO

Could these be westerns in disguise?

Australian tales like ‘NED KELLY’ and ‘ROBBERY UNDER ARMS,’

NED KELLY (2003)

South African adventures like ‘UNTAMED’ or even ‘ZULU.’

UNTAMED

Or ‘THE SEEKERS’ set in New Zealand where British settlers clash with the Maori?

THE SEEKERS

Or even ‘THE SEVEN SAMURAI’ set in 16^th Century Japan, which re-surfaced as ‘THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN’ of course.

And now I read Kirk Douglas (in his autobiography ‘The Ragman’s Son’) describing ‘THE VIKINGS,’ a Dark Age epic set in Northern Europe in the 9^th Century, as ‘really a western!’

Kirk Douglas in THE VIKINGS

Not to mention ‘STAR WARS’…

I think this part of the discussion should come to a juddering halt. In my view, these films may have similarities to the western, but a western for me, has to be set in the geographical American West.

A landscape that stretched from the Mississippi to the Pacific. But even within that vast land mass the western is selectively located. The Pacific Northwest, Idaho and Utah rarely feature. (Even if Monument Valley, Utah is perhaps the most famous western location, most of the movies filmed there are set elsewhere – in ‘The Searchers,’ for example, Monument Valley stands in for the Texas plains.)

Monument Valley

The most favoured locations for westerns tend to be Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and the Great Plains states from Montana and North Dakota down to Texas.

Historically the bulk of westerns take place in a period of history that lasted barely two generations, from around 1860, as the American Civil War was about to begin, to 1890 when the Census Bureau announced the end of the frontier, meaning there was no longer a discernible frontier line in the west, nor any large tracts of land yet unbroken by settlement. The same year saw the last major clash between the Native Americans and their conquerors in the tragic encounter at Wounded Knee.

Inside these three turbulent decades the vast majority of westerns are set – from novels written by Louis L’Amour and Larry McMurtry, to movies directed by John Ford and/or starring John Wayne to TV westerns from ‘Gunsmoke’ to ‘Bonanza’ to ‘Deadwood’ to ‘The Virginian.’

But immediately we can see the western bulging out of that time frame. In its early seasons at least one of these keynote shows, ‘The Virginian’ was located after 1890 – the elegiac episode ‘West’ was set in 1897, whilst other episodes featured the Spanish-American War of 1898. The highly popular movie ‘BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID’ was set at the same time, when the Hole-in-the Wall gang plundered freely, taking the western into the early years of the 20^th Century.

Paul Newman and Robert Redford in BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID

‘RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY,’ often held to be one of the greatest westerns ever made, opens with shots of ‘horseless carriages’ on the streets of a western town. Sam Peckinpah’s violent masterpiece ‘THE WILD BUNCH’ is set even later, during the Mexican revolution of the 1910s, as is ‘THE PROFESSIONALS.’ Both are unmistakably what aficionados would regard as westerns. Clearly a western requires a lawless environment, where anarchy and outlawry is still prevalent, whatever the date on the calendar.

William Holden goes down fighting in THE WILD BUNCH

Quite where the mainstream western turns into a ‘modern western’ is a subject for debate. Perhaps a cut-off date might be 1920, separating films like ‘THE WILD BUNCH’ from movies set later, even up present day – movies like ‘BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK’, ‘LONELY ARE THE BRAVE’, ‘NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN’ and ‘WIND RIVER.’

The ‘modern western’ – WIND RIVER

What defines these movies is that they’re all set in the U.S. west of the Mississippi – but is that exclusive western territory? After all both ‘THE WILD BUNCH’ and ‘THE PROFESSIONALS’ take place largely in Mexico – and the roistering Rory Calhoun adventure ‘THE TREASURE OF PANCHO VILLA’ is entirely set there, yet contains all the elements of a western.

And what about Canada? Movies set north of the 49 are just as obviously westerns – such as ‘PONY SOLDIER’ ‘O’ROURKE OF THE ROYAL MOUNTED’ and ‘THE CANADIANS’ – where Tyrone Power, Alan Ladd and Robert Ryan play Royal Canadian Mounted Policemen trying to prevent Indian wars breaking out in the 1870s.

Mountie Tyrone Power in PONY SOLDIER

Perhaps in defining the western we can allow for some overspill into adjacent regions where similar conditions to the American frontier prevailed.

Nor is there anything set in stone about 1860 as the beginning of the ‘classic western’ era. It’s just that not many western films and TV shows take place earlier. But the pre-1860 west has occasionally featured. The California Gold Rush was the backcloth to movies from ‘THE OUTLAWS OF POKER FLAT’ to the TV movie ‘The Desperate Mission’ about the legendary gold rush bandit Joaquin Murrieta.

Dale Robertson and Cameron Mitchell in THE OUTLAWS OF POKER FLAT

The wagon trains crossing the continent from the 1840s onwards were the backcloth to ‘MEEKS CUTOFF’ and ‘WESTWARD THE WOMEN.’

Wagons head west in MEEKS CUTOFF

The fur-trappers immortalised as ‘mountain men,’ whose heyday was 1810-1840, feature in ‘KIT CARSON’, ‘JEREMIAH JOHNSON’ and ‘ACROSS THE WIDE MISSOURI’ etc.

Robert Redford as JEREMIAH JOHNSON

And in 1835-1836 there was the short but bloody Texas War of Independence, where movie-makers have tended to focus on the dramatic stand at the Alamo in films like ‘THE ALAMO’ – 1960 and 2004 versions – THE LAST COMMAND and THE FIRST TEXAN.

Films like ‘THE ALAMO’ highlight that movies can, of course, be two things at once. They depict a battle between two modern armies, both using artillery, so can be described as ‘historical epics.’ But, as the two most prominent Alamo defenders were legendary western icons Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett, how could these films not be westerns also? Crockett particularly is regarded as the epitome of a frontiersman… which raises another issue.

Davy Crockett (John Wayne) takes his last stand in THE ALAMO (1960)

Crockett was born and died on the frontier… but his birthplace was eastern Tennessee, which was as much a frontier at the time of his birth in 1786 as Texas was when he died there in 1836.

The real David (‘Davy’) Crockett in 1834

The point is the frontier kept moving, and it started on the very easternmost seaboard of the U.S.A.

In 1625 the frontier – the beginning of ‘the West’ – stood in Virginia and New England. By the mid 18^th Century ‘the west’ had advanced to somewhere in the neighbourhood of western Pennsylvania and the Ohio Valley. Around 1780 it was Kentucky and Tennessee.

But the frontier could switch north and south as well as continuing west. When young Davy Crockett went off to fight the Seminoles in September 1814 he marched south-east from his Tennessee home to the newly-opened up frontier of Florida.

Similarly, settlement advancing west across the Great Plains leap-frogged Oklahoma and left it behind as the ‘Indian Territory.’ When first opened up for mass settlement in 1889 there was an explosion of lawlessness and violence in Oklahoma that ran through the 1890s – long after surrounding areas of Kansas and Texas, and states further west like Colorado, had become relatively ‘civilised,’ tamed by the advance of settlement speeded up by the railroads.

If the classic requirements of the western are American ‘frontier’ elements you can certainly argue that movies like ‘DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK,’ ‘LAST OF THE MOHICANS’ (both set in New York State in the late colonial period,) ‘SEMINOLE’ (located in the swamps of Florida in 1835) and the TV Series ‘Daniel Boone’, (set in Kentucky in the 1770s) are westerns, regardless of how far east they’re located on the map.

Fess Parker played ‘Daniel Boone’ on TV

On the other hand movies set in the ‘classic western’ time frame but far from the frontier can’t be called ‘westerns’ in my view. If every movie set in the U.S.A. between 1860 and 1890 counted as one, that would mean ‘GONE WITH THE WIND’ (set in Georgia in the 1860s) was a western! Not to mention ‘THE RAID’ (set in Vermont in 1864) ‘THE AGE OF INNOCENCE’ (New York 1870s) and others. Personally I don’t think Quentin Tarantino’s ‘DJANGO UNCHAINED’ can be called a western – despite its ‘spaghetti western’ trappings the movie’s set in Tennessee and Mississippi long after their frontier days.

Jamie Foxx as DJANGO UNCHAINED

I came to the conclusion that a better definition of a ‘western’ might be to term them ‘frontiers’ – but I can’t see that catching on!

I don’t know if I’ve cleared up any confusion with this discussion or just created more. But feel free to disagree!

BLURB for THE PEACEMAKER:

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To buy THE PEACEMAKER visit Amazon.com:

https://www.amazon.com/Peacemaker-Andrew-McBride/dp/153466937X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr

or Amazon.co.uk:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Peacemaker-Andrew-McBride/dp/153466937X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr

Welcome to Sundown Press

Sundown Press, launched in December 2014, publishes fiction and non-fiction of all lengths, from familiar authors as well as new talent. Genres include reference books, biographies, and fiction based on real-life characters.

After founding the historical western/western romance publishing company Prairie Rose Publications in August 2013, Livia J. Washburn and Cheryl Pierson recognized a need for an imprint specializing in fiction and non-fiction written by both women and men for readers across the spectrum. Sundown Press was born.

Got a book you’d like to submit? Sundown Press accepts submissions for how-to books, cookbooks, and other non-fiction works of all lengths. If you feel your manuscript fits the submission guidelines, please email it, along with a query and synopsis, to Editor in Chief Cheryl Pierson at prairierosepublications@yahoo.com.

We look forward to taking a look at your work.

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Monday, November 26, 2018

ANDREW McBRIDE interviewed by SCOTT HARRIS about his novel THE PEACEMAKER, westerns etc.

Monday, September 24, 2018

ANDREW McBRIDE on how THE BUFFALO SOLDIERS by JOHN PREBBLE inspired his novel THE PEACEMAKER

Monday, May 28, 2018

ANDREW McBRIDE on WHAT MAKES A WESTERN A WESTERN?