Western Short Story Collections

The short story is my favorite prose medium to read and to write. There's something about getting right to the point, and making a hard punch quickly, that is satisfying... and from a writer's point of view, the short story is a special art. It's like a prose haiku, or like a visual artist getting the maximum effect with the fewest strokes of the pen or brush. Less really is more.

For a long time it looked like the form was withering away. For the first several decades of the twentieth century, serious writers made their money in the short story to finance the work of writing their novels, rather than vice versa. By the 1990s, though, short story markets were drying up. Where were we as readers going to turn to find the new Louis L'Amour or Dorothy Johnson? Fortunately, the internet age -and the rapidly growing market for e-book shorts -has started filling the void.

My short story collection The Stealing Moon is out of print. In the coming year, the stories from it and several new tales will be repackaged as two separate collections from Western Trail Blazer: Cherokee Winter and Red Trail. I currently have several shorts available for 99 cents.

It has come to my attention just today that two of my friends have Western short story collections available for the kindle... for FREE, at least on Jan. 27 and 28. I imagine they'll go back up to their regular price after that. I highly recommend you seek them out. I am also going to mention a couple of collections that can be bought for under a dollar, and a couple of my own individual e-book shorts. Go out and grab you some short fiction!

FREE through Jan. 28:

SHADOWS OF YESTERYEAR by Jory Sherman

WALTZING WITH TUMBLEWEEDS by Dusty Richards



99 CENT SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS:

THE WANTED MAN by Matthew Pizzolato

THE ADVENTURES OF CASH LARAMIE AND GIDEON MILES, VOL. I by Edward Grainger

THE ADVENTURES OF CASH LARAMIE AND GIDEON MILES, VOL. II by Edward Grainger


INDIVIDUAL SHORT STORIES BY TROY D. SMITH:

THE DIVIDED PREY

BLACKWELL'S RUN

THE WINDIGO



HERE ARE SOME ANTHOLOGIES (a collection has stories that are all by the same author; an anthology has works by several authors)

THE TRADITIONAL WEST 

THE CHRISTMAS CAMPFIRE COMPANION 

LONE STAR LAW 


PAPERBACK CLASSICS:

MOVING ON by Jane Candia Coleman 

INDIAN COUNTRY by Dorothy Johnson 

THE HANGING TREE by Dorothy Johnson