Return now with us to those thrilling days of yesteryear when women were women and men were men — except when they became women!
Tales of the Old West have entertained Americans and other people around the world in the form of dime novels, pulp magazines, movies, TV shows, books and other media for more than a century. This book is in that tradition. About half of these stories are new, never before available for fans of transgender fiction or anyone else either.
If you're wondering what "with Joyce Melton" means in the byline, it means Joyce contributed to about half this book with story ideas, plot outlines, the occasional paragraph of description, dialog or random observation, proofreading and editing.
Major editing was done by Tom Peashey.
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Comments
I had a lot of fun writing these stories.
"All Her Misfortune" was an idea by Erin, and she wrote part of the first couple of chapters before I took hold and spun this tale out. At over 10,000 words and told in chapters it is not my usual style, but for me each of the chapters is its own story - a misfortune that builds up the character.
"Snake Oil" was another written just for a book. Just an idea I had about a travelling seller of patent remedies.
"Indian Red" has already been published here - something based on the real life events that inspired "The Searchers" - a white person raised as a squaw, but in this case, with a little anomaly making her "berdache"
"Frontier Bride" was another already published, and based on those stories about women heading west in search of a husband.
"Back Shot" was based on a published story which I had intended just to change slightly to shift it back in time, but it ended up a very different story.
"Calico" is a ghost town that Erin is familiar with, and was the setting for a story about a young gunfighter trying to escape the fate that befell Wild Bill Hickok.
"Clementine" is a wagon train story. Erin had an idea but I strayed from that quite a bit.
"Wendigo" was about something I had never heard of until Erin mentioned it. I think that she had something supernatural in mind but that is not my thing.
"Looking for Trouble" was a title suggested by Erin, but I had to tell her the story of Bass Reeves and make him the central character in this story. When will they make that movie?
"The Fifth Bride" I suppose is based on "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" although I have never seen that show. I get the idea though.
"Smiths" was one of mine and gave me another chance to reintroduce Dr Elizabeth Pearl from the title story - my own frontier "medicine woman".
"Queen of Hearts" came about because I realized that I had not included a story set in a mining camp - one of those frontier communities very short on women where a man might bet his manhood if he thinks he has a winning hand in poker
More Westerns
I have just finished another TG tale from the Old West, so now I have 4 for the next anthology. Plus I intend writing those stories that I mentioned in my Pearl Grey bio (https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/90737/trans-wiki-bio-...) including...
“East of the Pecos” - tells the story of a cowboy and an adventurer at heart (like Pearl herself) who feels compels to head east for a new life living as a woman. This touching tale perhaps reveals that Pearl had an inner desire to settle that she never achieved in life.
"Chuckwagon" (from “The Trail Drivers”) - explores similar transgender themes when the woman taking over the chuckwagon for a team of cowboys turns out be not the sister of their old comrade, but the man himself choosing to live life as a frontier lady.
Plus Erin has a bunch of ideas....
Would you like more westerns?
Maryanne