James D. Best

  “The fascination that the Old West has will never die." John Wayne The mythology of the Old West has been denigrated by the people wh...

Ran across this paper by  Robert J. “ Bob ” Stahl at  Arizona State University. Fun Old West trivia. Highlight mine. Since th...

Honest westerns filled with dishonest people. Progress Report The latest Steve Dancy Tale has been returned from my editor and I ha...

Del Monte Hotel, Monterey, California No Peace, A Steve Dancy Tale takes place at the Hotel Del Monte in Monterey, Californ...

My sister lives in Long Beach, California and my brother in Kailua, Hawaii. I live mostly in Omaha, Nebraska, but spend winters in Sa...

I've always identified poker with the old west.  Jenny’s Revenge starts in Denver, Colorado at the renown Inter-Ocean Hotel. Steve D...

Western writers are like other fiction writers in that they have super powers. They can bend time, compress space, and sweep away boring pe...

The New York Times recently ran an opinion piece titled, “ Don’t ask what I’m writing .” The article deals with writers’ uncertainty durin...

We had a great visit to the Big Apple. Father/daughter cruise around Manhattan, grandson playing a double header on Randall's Island,...

Jacob Riis was a late nineteenth century social reformer who used his camera to expose parts of New York City avoided by the smart set. H...

Yesterday we walked our new house with a contractor. Whew, do we have a lot of work to do. Just about everything we own is in storage await...

We arrived Friday evening in Omaha. It was late and we were very tired. Eight hundred and sixty miles of driving in a single day tends ...

Steve Dancy has had a rocky romantic life in the first three novels. His mother pushed him to marry a young lady who would enhance the fa...

Edison's Black Maria, West Orange New Jersey Edison’s first movie studio was in West Orange, New Jersey. It was nicknamed the Black...

Poor, but smiling nonetheless Last month, Paul Mountjoy of Virginia wrote a snarky article for the Washington Times website titled, ...

Last night we arrived back in Arizona safe and sound. It was a great road trip through Nevada and none of us played a single slot machine....

Robert Peecher, author and journalist, has published an interview with me on his blog. Q. When you started writing did you know St...

"Branding cattle" Six cowboys branding cattle in front of a house. 1891 Last week I posted "Preserving Western cult...

Don Schimmel Photography There are many ways to preserve our Western Culture. I prefer books, of course. I have no visual or musical...

"This is a compelling narrative and as good as the best of classic Westerns. James D. Best is a name to remember." Read ...