Taylor Fogarty J. P. S. Brown Willard Holopeter
Elaine Long
Sinclair Browning
Slim Randles
Lori Van Pelt
Grem Lee
Dick Hyson
Sally C. Bates
Virginia Bennett
Curt Brummett
Jimbo Brewer
Paula Paul
Helen C. Avery Gwen Peterson Candy Moulton, author of nine books of western history
and Max Evans, the author of Madam Millie (UNM Press), Bluefeather Fellini, The Rounders,The Hi Lo Country, and twenty-two other books.
HOT BISCUITS
Eighteen Stories by Women and Men of the Ranching West
edited by Max Evans and Candy Moulton
or more than twenty years Max Evans has been trying to assemble a book of stories by working cowboysmen who were ranch hands with at least five years of paid experience and women who had either been raised on ranches or joined their husbands on a double hire-out for five years or more. With the expert help of Candy Moulton he has succeeded in collecting eighteen stories set in the Ranching West after 1920 that meet his inflexible requirements: experience plus imagination plus innate writing ability.
As Evans notes in his introduction, subdivisions, condos, and ranchettes are shrinking the Ranching West every day: "Some of those who once lived it, and those few who are so agonizingly still working it with bloodied souls, must put it down on paper. . . . If we fail to act with immediacy the truth will continue to dissipate. . . with frightening rapidity."
The stories in this anthology range as wide as the Rockies, from a murder mystery to the tale of a unique horse trainer, to a family's desperate battle against a grass and forest fire to the story of a world famous violinist. But they share a common denominator: biscuits. Almost every story includes hot biscuits as a feature of daily life in the Ranching West. Biscuits, it turns out, are more important in western life than guns and maybe more than coffee. In the West, people who could make superior biscuits received more respect than the mayor and the police chief combined.
JPS BROWN Author Profile
Joseph Paul Summers Brown (j p s brown), born in Nogales, Arizona, 1930. fifth generation Arizona and Sonora, Mexico cattleman. Graduated Saint Michaels High School, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1948. Graduated Notre Dame University, journalism, 1952. Raised on the High Lonesome Ranch, Sanders, Arizona. General assignment reporter on two Arizona weekly newspapers one year, two years on the El Paso Herald-Post. Commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps, 1955. Heavy machine gun platoon commander of Weapons Company, Second Battalion Third Marines, South Camp Fuji, Japan, 1955-1956. Coached Third Marine Division boxing team. Transferred to Marine Corps Cold Weather Training Center, Pickle Meadows, California as an instructor guide, 1956. Member of the first five man team to teach military rock climbing and animal packing in the Marine Corps Mountain Leadership School at CWTC.
Released from active duty,1958. Bought cattle and horses in Chihuahua, Sonora, Baja California, Coahuila, and Jalisco. Worked on cowboy crew caring for 6,000 cattle on Imperial Valley, California pasture. Moved to Navojoa, Sonora in 1960 to buy cattle for American rodeo. Rode horseshoe trails of the Sierra Madre Occidental from Chinipas, Chihuahua to Sahuaripa, Sonora. Ranched and bought cattle on the coastal desert near the Sea of Cortez from southern Sonora to Arizona border. Built the first dipping vat for the eradication of the fever tick in the municipality of Navojoa. One of the founders of the Navojoa charter of the Mexican National Charro Association. He had been a champion amateur boxer at Saint Michaels, Notre Dame, and in the Marine Corps. In 1963 and 1964 he fought professionally in Mexico.
He began to write the first stories that became his first novel, Jim Kane, in 1960. In 1968 came out of Mexico to help gather Art Linkletter's Lida, Nevada ranch. 1970, Jim Kane published by Dial Press, N.Y. 1971, The Outfit, based on experiences at the Lida ranch published by Dial. 1974, came out of Mexico to ranch at Snowflake, Arizona. 1977-2003, worked in Tucson as a member of the Teamsters Union Movie Wranglers, provided cattle and horses, stunts, and acted in bit parts in the motion picture business. The National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City keeps a collection of J.P.S. Brown's books. Received the Will James Society's Big Enough Award for a lifetime of literary achievement in the cowboy tradition,1999 and the Lawrence Clark Powell Award from Arizona Historical Society for lifetime achievement in southwestern letters, 2003. His book Jim Kane was made into the movie Pocket Money with Paul Newman and Lee Marvin, 1972. Other fiction: The Forests of the Night, Dial, 1974; Steeldust, Walker, 1986; Keep the Devil Waiting, Bantam, 1992; The Arizona Saga, (four books:) The Blooded Stock, The Horseman, Ladino, Native Born, Bantam. 1989-1994; The Cinnamon Colt, Bantam, 1996;
JPS BROWN Author Profile
Joseph Paul Summers Brown (j p s brown), born in Nogales, Arizona, 1930. fifth generation Arizona and Sonora, Mexico cattleman. Graduated Saint Michaels High School, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1948. Graduated Notre Dame University, journalism, 1952. Raised on the High Lonesome Ranch, Sanders, Arizona. General assignment reporter on two Arizona weekly newspapers one year, two years on the El Paso Herald-Post. Commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps, 1955. Heavy machine gun platoon commander of Weapons Company, Second Battalion Third Marines, South Camp Fuji, Japan, 1955-1956. Coached Third Marine Division boxing team. Transferred to Marine Corps Cold Weather Training Center, Pickle Meadows, California as an instructor guide, 1956. Member of the first five man team to teach military rock climbing and animal packing in the Marine Corps Mountain Leadership School at CWTC.
Released from active duty,1958. Bought cattle and horses in Chihuahua, Sonora, Baja California, Coahuila, and Jalisco. Worked on cowboy crew caring for 6,000 cattle on Imperial Valley, California pasture. Moved to Navojoa, Sonora in 1960 to buy cattle for American rodeo. Rode horseshoe trails of the Sierra Madre Occidental from Chinipas, Chihuahua to Sahuaripa, Sonora. Ranched and bought cattle on the coastal desert near the Sea of Cortez from southern Sonora to Arizona border. Built the first dipping vat for the eradication of the fever tick in the municipality of Navojoa. One of the founders of the Navojoa charter of the Mexican National Charro Association. He had been a champion amateur boxer at Saint Michaels, Notre Dame, and in the Marine Corps. In 1963 and 1964 he fought professionally in Mexico.
He began to write the first stories that became his first novel, Jim Kane, in 1960. In 1968 came out of Mexico to help gather Art Linkletter's Lida, Nevada ranch. 1970, Jim Kane published by Dial Press, N.Y. 1971, The Outfit, based on experiences at the Lida ranch published by Dial. 1974, came out of Mexico to ranch at Snowflake, Arizona. 1977-2003, worked in Tucson as a member of the Teamsters Union Movie Wranglers, provided cattle and horses, stunts, and acted in bit parts in the motion picture business. The National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City keeps a collection of J.P.S. Brown's books. Received the Will James Society's Big Enough Award for a lifetime of literary achievement in the cowboy tradition,1999 and the Lawrence Clark Powell Award from Arizona Historical Society for lifetime achievement in southwestern letters, 2003. His book Jim Kane was made into the movie Pocket Money with Paul Newman and Lee Marvin, 1972. Other fiction: The Forests of the Night, Dial, 1974; Steeldust, Walker, 1986; Keep the Devil Waiting, Bantam, 1992; The Arizona Saga, (four books:) The Blooded Stock, The Horseman, Ladino, Native Born, Bantam. 1989-1994; The Cinnamon Colt, Bantam, 1996;
Taylor Fogarty