There’s just something about the open desert and a full moon night. It’s like walking into another world where strange things can happen at any moment.
Back when I was a writing teacher, my college ran a writing program that included conferences and workshops featuring some high profile names in the publishing world. (That’s how I happened to meet Ray Bradbury.)
One of those names was Emma Bull, a fantasy author best known for her charming novel War for the Oaks, which won the Locus Award for Best First Novel and, some say, put urban fantasy on the literary map.
I adored that book. With its mixture of gritty urban life and the standard tropes of faery lore, it built a universe that I longed to emulate.
So when Emma Bull came to Tucson to conduct a weekend workshop, I used my instructor perk and signed right up. In the workshop we did indeed talk about War for the Oaks and other fantasy stories. But on the last evening, we gathered in the campus theater for a special event: Emma would read for the first time a new story she’d been working on.
I don’t recall the name of that story now - and I can’t find it among her many writings. But it was set in old Bisbee, Arizona, and it had to do with a magical creature inhabiting a hill of tailings from the massive Copper Queen mine, and young man who learned its secret. It was a sweet and magical tale, and as Emma read the final sentences, her voice broke and she seemed on the verge of tears.
That might have been my real introduction to the “Weird Western.” Although The Dark Tower was the only Stephen King work I’d ever liked, I didn’t really identify it that way. I didn’t encounter that kind of story again until several years later, with the publication of Emma’s novel Territory, which combined magic with the tale of Wyatt Earp and Tombstone’s OK Corral. Since then, it seems that the Weird Western has been lurking in the shadows of the fantasy/horror world, hard to shoehorn into a genre slot.
But just lately, Weird Westerns seem to be having a moment, popping up as movies like Cowboys and Aliens, TV shows including Outer Range, Wynonna Earp and Westworld, and batch of novels and graphic novels like Ronald Kelly’s The Saga of Dead-Eye, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, and the Preacher series by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, which inspired the recent television show.
So what is a Weird Western anyway, and why should you add a few to your reading list?
In the broadest sense, they’re stories set anywhere in the Southwest or Western United States, usually in the territorial days of the “Wild West.” Some are also set in the modern west, like Terri Windling’s lovely The Wood Wife and some of the stories of fantasy veteran Charles de Lint. There’s also a site devoted entirely to Weird Western tales, called (what else) Weird West Fiction, which even offers publication opportunities and writing tips.
Past or present, though, they all blend the well-worn Western tropes with elements of fantasy, horror, and even science fiction - and that mashup of so many genres opens a multitude of storytelling possibilities.
I’m thinking of this now because of a few recent conversations I’ve had with fellow writers and some readers about Weird Western stories and their unique magic. And also because in looking back at my own collection of stories and poems, I seem to have written a lot of them.
Maybe it’s because I live right in the borderlands where skyscrapers rise and, not too far away, jaguars roam the mountains and coyotes watch you from the banks of arroyos. But the West has always captured the imagination of people around the world.
In coming issues of Behind the Scenes, I’ll suggest a few more Weird Westerns to explore, including some wonderful authors right here on Substack. And I’ll also be working on the sequel to “On Crow Water” and a new collection featuring Sixkiller.
Got any favorite titles to share or writers to recommend? Let me know in the comments.
The Future of Behind the Scenes:
After a bit of floundering about how to do this, I have a plan!
Starting October 1, the Behind the Scenes feature will be published separately from the main Black Moon Journal story. It’ll come out on Wednesdays, with commentary on the fantasy and science fiction scene and other snippets about the craft. That way BMJ keeps the focus on the fiction and allows more space for developing this feature. Not your cup of tea? You can always opt out in your subscription settings.