Ghost Town (copyright © m.a.h. hinton)

I found out yesterday that The Western Online has just published one more of my western short stories. This one is entitled “Montana is Big”. Regular readers of MontanaWriter may remember that The Western Online published another story of mine, “Box Canyon”, last May.

For those keeping score, right now on-line you can find the following short stories of mine.

• “Box Canyon” at  The Western Online
• “Cottonwood Death” at  Frontier Tales
• “Montana is Big” at  The Western Online

I have also posted a .pdf of another short story, “Coffee Cup”, here at MontanaWriter. For a .pdf of that story, click here. “Coffee Cup” by Mark Hinton

Thank you to the folks at TheWesternOnline.com for liking my story enough to publish it.

You can find TheWesternOnline.com and my short story “Montana is Big” here.

Enjoy!

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Montana Noir (copyright © m.a.h. hinton)

I found out yesterday that my western noir short story, “Cottonwood Death,” was voted favorite December short story by the readers of Frontier Tales Magazine. To all who voted for my story, thank you.

I have been asked by a few readers, if I have other short stories in the works. I do. A few more western noir short stories I am polishing up and a few… others. I hope to have one or two ready in the next few weeks. I will keep the readers of MontanaWriter posted. And to all who have cared enough to ask, thank you for that as well.

The lot of the writer can be a lonely one. A lot of time alone, working on something that may or may not: ever see the light of day, ever amount to anything in the end, ever work as intended or imagined, ever be finshed, ever be enjoyed by any one at all. So to have some people say they enjoyed something I have written is gratifying.

A few people who have written have also asked me about the dark nature of my stories. I really have not yet figured out how best to respond to that question. One reader, who had taken time to also read some of my poems, said that it seemed to him like I save all the “light” for my poems and all the “darkness” for my short stories. Maybe poetry lends itself better to the language of grace and prose to the language of judgement. I do not know. I only know that I am trying to write the kind of stories I would most like to read.

Either way, thanks to all who take the time to read what I write. You can never know how much I truly appreciate it.

For those who may have missed  ”Cottonwood Death,” or would like to read it again, here is a link to Frontier Tales Magazine.

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(copyright © m.a.h. hinton)

“The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural; and he may well be forced to take ever more violent means to get his vision across to this hostile audience. When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax a little and use more normal ways of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock — to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures.”  ~ Flannery O’Connor

I have posted my poems here but not any of my short stories.

Here is a Noir Western I wrote, called “Coffee Cup.” Because of its dark nature, I feel compelled to say a few words about the story and the nature of hardboiled fiction.

It seems to me that one of the things that distinguishes truly hardboiled fiction from merely genre fiction is that hardboiled fiction takes seriously the true cost of violence and death. Violence and death make victims of everyone who come into contact with them.

In your typical Agatha Christie-type novel, the main characters encounter death and violence and yet seem untouched by it all. They solve the crime and move on to the next death and murder, and the next, and the next. Never losing their humanity, seemingly untouched and unstained by the violence.

I have no time for such fiction. Violence, suffering, and death by definition challenge our humanity and change us. That is the kind of fiction I like to read… and the kind I want to write.

I hope you enjoy. If you enjoy it, please share it with others. If you do not like it, I am sorry. Stay tuned… you may like the next one better.

For the a .pdf of the story, click here. “Coffee Cup” by Mark Hinton

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www.thewesternonline.com

Regular readers of MontanaWriter know that I have been working to break my bad habit of writing something, sitting on it for awhile, then just throwing it away. As a marketing plan for a writer, it has not been a successful strategy.

Recently I decided to start sending a few things out instead of just sitting on them… and so I have. My short story “Box Canyon” is now available at TheWesternOnline.com. It is, as the title of the website indicates, a western story.

Westerns are, admittedly, anachronistic. At first glance they may seem to belong to another time. Yet as a writer I find myself fascinated with the possibilities and promises of the form… and I also enjoy writing them.

I have always loved westerns. They remain my favorite genre of both film and popular fiction. Westerns are what I find myself turning to when I am feeling lonesome or restless… when I am feeling a need to reconnect with my roots, with the best part of myself.

My original plan had been to put a number of my western and noir stories together in a separate volume entitled Montana Noir and publish it with Montana Poems on kindle. Recently I decided to go a different route and so started re-editing the stories and sending them out.

Thank you to the folks at TheWesternOnline.com for liking my story enough to publish it.

You can find TheWesternOnline.com and my short story “Box Canyon” here.

Enjoy!

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