Rawhide Revenants Homework

Some pre-reading and -viewing for the apple polishers waiting for Wyrd West 3!

Howdy, gang!

Nick here, your editor for the next Wyrd West anthology, which we’re calling Rawhide Revenants! The window opens on the first of February, and closes out the sixth of April. Even if you’ve got nothing down yet, that’s still more than two months to brainstorm, draft, edit, rewrite, and put the bells and whistles on your entry.

“Trail dust swirled around them, but none of it stuck to their clothes. Weird.”

What are we looking for in our Wyrd West volumes? First of all, check out the call itself, of course. You may be interested in the last version of this post, which I wrote for the previous Wyrd West collection. Is there anything else we can advise or suggest?

The first thing I would submit to you is that any decent Western will do to get you in the right frame of mind. It doesn’t have to have magic or aliens. Some perfectly non-fantastical but still well-written and highly entertaining Westerns are out there.

3:10 to Yuma. Rio Bravo. True Grit. Slow West. Open Range. Godless. American Primeval. The English. Lonesome Dove. Deadwood. Bone Tomahawk. The Wild Bunch. There are stories set more recently, such as The Time it Never Rained or The Highwaymen, but to my mind they still count as Westerns because all of the elements are there.

Heck, as far as mundane tales of frontier life go, I’d even say pieces set much earlier in the continent’s settlement might fit the bill. Is Last of the Mohicans about cattle drives and rattlesnakes, whorehouses and rotgut whiskey? No, but some of the themes are there: tough, laconic warriors, scouts and settlers fighting to survive in a still-largely-untamed wilderness.

“He never did understand why folks insisted on calling him ‘Hawk.’ Weird.”

If you’re looking for more truly “wyrd” content to get you in the mood, there are some good ones to choose from. Shows like Dark Winds, Westworld and Outer Range. Movies like Cowboys and Aliens, Ravenous, Pale Rider and High Plains Drifter. Not as well-known: The Burrowers.

The novels of Tony Hillerman, Louis L’Amour and Larry McMurtry may not be explicitly supernatural, but they often explore themes of mystery and the spiritual world underneath our own. I personally quite like Blood Meridian, but that opinion can be an unpopular one (although I’m happy to argue about it!).

These are just a few books, shows and movies you can check out to get on the right track. There are no hard and fast “Do and Don’t” rules on this. If I’m citing Cowboys and Aliens and Dark Winds, you can tell we aren’t going to bounce a submission just because it’s not a traditional Western. Do not, however, simply throw some Western elements into a wildly different story. Your piece about cats in space, or a 1950s private eye, or Space Marines, might be great, but don’t just give everyone a six shooter and call it a Western.

For those who really want to see the test ahead of time, I won’t do that, but you can read the two previous volumes (here and here). These are a great indication of what we’ll be looking for, because the editorial team is the same for Rawhide Revenants, and we can’t wait to get started!

Look how excited we are. LOOK AT IT.

We look forward to being surprised and entertained by your submissions! The window opens soon.

Good luck, and make sure you shake out your boots in the morning!

-Nick