Shadow of a Crow is a traditional western novel brought out by Thorndike Press as a large print original in March of 2026. By my count, this is my thirty-ninth traditional western and my forty-third novel. If I add to that total more than a dozen fiction collections, a few books on writing, a couple of booklets on Wyoming fiction and writers, and a couple of poetry collections, I am past sixty in my total. Some people think that is quite a bit, but I know writers who have written hundreds of titles and under various names, so I would like to maintain a note of modesty here.

Shadow of a Crow, a western novel of 74,000 words, set in Wyoming in the 1890s, is a story about a man who decides he wants to get out of a life of crime and lowness. He meets a woman, also imperfect, who wants to get out of her circumstances and past life. I chose to write this story because the topic is still important to me, even though I have written a couple of other stories along these lines. My challenge was to write something that did not repeat what I had already written and to write something that mattered.

To write this story, I did some preliminary work such as I often do.  I undertook some diverse reading, from poetry by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, and later poets; plays like Othello, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Death of a Salesman; Confessions of an English Opium-Eater and shorter works by DeQuincey; Of Human Bondage by Maugham, Catch-22 by Heller, The Beet Queen by Erdrich, The Crossing by McCarthy, and Aesop’s Travels by Boyd.

I also reviewed some of my own work, to help me avoid repetition.

Interspersed with my reading, I watched several movies, including film versions of the plays mentioned above, then Duel in the Sun, The Wonderful Country, River of No Return, Colorado Territory, and a few other westerns that did not have much effect. I also watched non-westerns such as A Double Life, Madeleine, and On the Waterfront. Several of these that I name I had seen before, so I knew what I was looking for. I must say that Duel in the Sun, which I had not seen for many years, gave me something new to work against in the characterization of the young woman, and when I had seen On the Waterfront and Colorado Territory anew, I felt I had my bearings.

I also went on a field trip, as I often do, to find a new location for a story. This time I took in the country north and west of Hartville, Wyoming, south of where I had set stories such as Castle Butte and north of where I set Lost Canyon.

I wrote the manuscript when I had a block of time in the spring and early summer of 2025. I felt that I achieved what I set out to do, which was to write about a topic that mattered and to present my treatment through the form of a traditional western. I appreciate Thorndike Press for undertaking to publish it, and I hope it fares well.

Shadow of a Crow is available at Barnes & Noble.

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