5 minute read
Behind the Chutes: Bringing Home the Hardware
Celebrating Some Top Authors and Another Great Issue.
Welcome to the Winter issue of Saddlebag Dispatches magazine. This issue is themed around Cochise County, Arizona. You’ll likely recognize the authors of most, if not all, of our features.
We are extremely pleased with the recognition that some of our authors and staf have received since the last issue. Sherry Monahan received a Will Rogers Medallion Award Gold Medal for The Tombstone Cook- book: Recipes and Lore from the Town Too Tough to Die; Chris Enss won a silver medal for The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn, co-authored with Howard Kazanjian; Chris also received a Copper Medal for Along Came a Cowgirl: Daring and Iconic Women of the Rodeo & Wild West Shows; Michael Norman received a Copper Medal for his short story, “Lozen’s War” published in Saddlebag Dispatches; Timothy Lange won Silver for Galaxy: The Best Friend a Cowboy Ever Had; P.A. O’Neil received Copper for her great article on the annual Ellensburg Rodeo, “Northwest Passage,” also here in Saddlebag Dispatches, and Manuela Schneider won a Silver Medal for her western flm, Miner’s Candle.
Over at Western Fictioneers, JD Arnold was a Peacemaker Award fnalist for Best First Novel with Rawhide Jake: Learning the Ropes, and Ben Goheen was a fnalist for short fction with “On the Trail with Packer,” which is another one you may recognize from right here at Saddlebag Dispatches.
Finally, Chris Enss also won the WILLA Award from Women Writing the West with The Wid- owed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Our heartiest congratulations to all of these talented authors. If you haven’t read their work yet, you really need to.
Now on to this issue...
First of, please excuse our dust while we do some remodeling around the old ranch house. As you fip through the pages, you’ll notice some changes to our signature style, perhaps none larger than the front cover you’ve already seen. After half a decade, we decided to liven the place up a bit. Similar changes will be coming to our website soon, as well. Don’t worry, though, we’re the same old Saddlebag Dispatches, just a little better looking for our big Tenth Anniversary celebration in 2024.
So what else do we have in store for you this year? Well, I’d say quite a bit.
For one thing, we’re proud to announce the winner of our Inaugural Longhorn Prize for Western Short Fiction, the one and only Michael Norman with his fantastic short story, “A Death of Crows.” Michael will not only take home $300 and even more bragging rights, he’ll also receive a trophy belt buckle from Montana Silversmiths to commemorate the occasion.
Next up, we have a history and exploration of the Arizona’s beautiful Karchner Caverns by award-winning author Doug Hocking. There’s a masterful treatise setting the record straight regarding the legacy of lawman/detective Jonas V. Brighton—known in some circles as Rawhide Jake—by JD Ar- nold. The inimitable Chris Enss teams up with JoAnn Chartier to bring you the stories of both Cathy Williams, a female Bufalo Soldier, and Lozen, the Apache Shaman Warrior who rode with Geronimo. Award-winning food writer Sherry Monahan covers the dining choices in old Tombstone in her article, “Bon Ton and Toney,” while Manuela Schneider takes you on a tour of the Haunted Bird Cage Theatre. Finally, noted historian Bill Markley checks in with a pair of great Cochise County-related articles, one featuring Apache leaders Geronimo and Cochise, and the other chronicling some of the Tombstone adventures of Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and Luke Short, among others.
As always, we also have a great lineup of western short fction for your reading enjoyment. W. Michael Farmer takes you on an emotional journey when a modern-day border vigilante must listen to his heart instead of his head. Gary Rodgers ofers a town marshal trying to keep the lid on a feud between ranchers amid hostile Apache jumping the reservation. Scott Brents offers up a modern-day Western when a man with a metal detector hobby fnds himself suddenly immersed in a gangland-style slaying, Ben Henry Bailey brings us a unique look at the famous fght at the O.K. Corral, and James Tweedie’s colorful stagecoach driver tells the story of the botched robbery he somehow managed to live through. Rounding out the roster this time is Anthony Wood with “Judged and Found Lacking;” the second installment in the Story of Rainy Mills he bagan with “Blood of My Birth” in our last issue.
So, as usual, pull up a log, sit yourself down and pour yourself a cup from the camp pot, because you’re in for some great Western reading, courtesy of Saddlebag Dispatches, the Award-Winning Home of All Things Western.
