James D. Best

When people talk about the film industry, they seldom mention Thomas Edison, yet he filmed the first western at his studio in New York Cit...

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

The Steve Dancy Tales will be featured in a full-page ad in the April edition of True West Magazine . Look for it in your mail box or local...

I loved to ski, and my favorite mountain is Mammoth, California. When a friend owned a condo, I also skied the perfectly groomed slopes a...

Ron Scheer writes reasoned and comprehensive book reviews, so I was a little nervous when he accepted a review copy of The Return . I n...

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

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 ...

Last post I wrote that Mark Twain, Owen Wister and Wells Drury portrayed Westerners as particularly fond of pranks and practical jokes. Her...

David Gritten has written a perceptive and informative article in the U.K. Telegram about the future of Westerns. It is titled, "Is ...

As a kid I was not a big fan of Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, or The Lone Ranger. Sure, I watched them, but they never had the pull of Jos...

Several of my fellow writers lament that it’s almost impossible to break into Amazon high ranking for Westerns due to Romance Novels fil...

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...

I was wandering around YouTube and found a fun video of Eleanor Powell tap dancing her way through some impressive rope tricks. Reputed...

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

Westerns were hugely popular for over a hundred years. Not only were they popular in the Unite...

"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...

If your name was Louis L'Amour and you wrote about men tougher than nails, would you adopt a penname? Frederick Faust used Max Bran...