The Story With No Name Part 7

Western author Joseph A. West has turned in a fine Part 7 to the Wild Bunch Wednesday Story Challenge over at THE TAINTED ARCHIVE. Joe told Gary Dobbs he's written 27 western novels. I'm impressed. Because his website is under construction, I swiped this bio from Amazon:

Joe West was born and raised in the seaside town of Saltcoats in Scotland. At 19 he became a police officer, but soon turned his love of writing into a career as a journalist, working for the Daily Mirror in London among others. In 1972 West was recruited as a reporter for the National Enquirer, and began working in the United States. Traveling the world in search of stories, West almost froze to death on an Alaska mountain, and a spider bite nearly killed him in the Amazon rainforest. “I swelled up like a balloon and turned a real pretty violet color,” he recalls.

Now a full-time novelist, West and his wife Emily reside in sunny Palm Beach, Florida, where he enjoys tamer pursuits like canoeing the alligator-infested swamps of the Everglades. His 22-year-old daughter Alexandria attends a local college where she studies forensic technology. She will have absolutely nothing to do with canoes and alligators. West researches the settings of his novels by exploring the terrain in person, usually with little more than a sleeping bag and a can of coffee.

Recently he and Emily celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary at the Lodge in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, a gift from the students at Rio Rancho High School who use West’s first novel as a textbook. They then spent a month in the mountains and deserts of New Mexico, often pitching their tent where the air is thin at 9,000 feet above the flat.

For more, check out Steve M's interview with Joe at Western Fiction Review.

Ian Parnham has kindly gathered Parts 1 thru 6 of the round-robin Story Challenge on his blog. But if you'd rather do it the hard way, you can find them here:

Part 1 by I.J. Parnham
Part 2 by Jack Giles
Part 3 by Chuck Tyrell
Part 4 by Evan Lewis
Part 5 by Jack Martin
Part 6 by James J. Griffin

As of this posting, Part 8 is still up for grabs. Want to take a hand? Hop over to THE TAINTED ARCHIVE and say so. No blog required.