Last year my friend and mentor Howard Weinstein floated me a call for submissions for an anthology. Then untitled, it was to be published by Five Star Press, who published Howie’s excellent first Western novel, Galloway’s Gamble. The deadline was short, but it was a good opportunity. I dropped everything and wrote “Boxcar Knights,” a story set shortly after the civil war, in which two Confederate orphans hop a freight to go west in search of their fortunes. I love railroad stories, and I got to do a lot of cool research on hobo culture. I’ll never be able to listen to the folk song “The Big Rock Candy Mountain” the same way again.

Well, my drop-everything effort paid off. The story was very well-received by Senior Editor Tiffany Schofield. Within days, it was slated for publication in Hobnail and Other Frontier Stories, ably edited by Hazel Rumney. I had an overwhelmingly positive experience working with them, and now it’s shipping in glorious hardcover! Please buy a copy or ask your library to order a copy. And, once you’ve read it, review!