It's here - WILD WEST MONDAY..whoopee!

It's amazing really - but today all over the world folk are badgering their bookshops and libraries about their western stock or quite often lack of it. New western blogs are springing up on a daily basis and it genuinely feels that we are in some sort of revival. People are giving me credit for this but it's not been a one man movement and folk are helping all over - Ray Foster and Chap O'Keefe, from the Black Horse stable, especially have helped publicise the initiative and in the US luminaries such as James Reasoner are pushing the public knowledge of the event by giving over their blogs to publicise it. Writers like Jim Griffin are out there pushing their own books as well as the genre at large in libraries and at book signings. And I must mention David Cramer who has been drawing attention to the event since the first Wild West Monday all those months ago.
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I must also bring attention to a wonderful WILD WEST MONDAY post on BROKEN TRAILS by a sixteen year old British girl who is taking a western to school today - that's what it's all about folks - bringing in the younger readers. If Wild West Monday does no more than this then it's already a wonderful achievement for the not so old and stale genre.


But now it's snowballed and there are far too many people involved to mention everyone but you know who you are and I, and western fans everywhere, thank you for your time and efforts.

Today I'm being interviewed on local radio about The Tarnished Star and the Wild West Monday initiative. I'm also going to visit every bookshop in a twenty mile radius.

The date for the next Wild West Monday has not been set but I make a pledge now that it will be even bigger again and I will, use some of my entertainment contacts, to get some national TV coverage of the initiative on National Television. Ray Foster gave me this idea and I've started pitching it, using the getting people reading again angle, to a couple of researchers I know. So hopefully next time you could see Ray and Myself on the box pushing the genre for all we're worth.

So saddle up folks and let's go get em.

Oh and tonight as a gift for Wild West Monday, The Archive had secured the rights for the digital publication of Chap O'Keefe's classic Black Horse Western, The Sheriff and the Widow. The book, long out of print, has been passing hands for silly money on EBAY but Archive readers can read it here for FREE starting tonight and continuing in four parts each Monday. Thanks to Chap O'Keefe for making this possible.