Whether sprawled on barstools or preaching from pulpits, people need to make sense of their world, and in Jim Sanderson's world of West Texas, pulpits and barstools are where many of them do so. Sanderson himself stood for many years at a podium, teaching at a community college in Odessa, Texas. There, tired of academic papers and sometimes losing the distinction between fiction and nonfiction, he turned to the world around him to figure out the meaning (or meanings) of education and of culture itself.
In a series of autobiographical ruminations, Sanderson develops the theme that frontier...

"Jim Sanderson has created a terrific story around a memorably roguish central character. . . . Nevin's History is a good, good-humored story, and Jim Sanderson is a writer to watch." Dallas Morning News"This novel of Borderlands violence and romance is an enjoyable read for anyone, especially those interested in Texana. . . . The book's best character development is Nevin, who reveals that even a professed coward with scruples can display violence and even bravery when his own life is in the balance." Southwestern Historical Quarterly" An] exciting novel of those who fought to bring...

Hard living, missed opportunities, and dogged persistence in the pursuit of impossible dreams are themes that help unite the linked stories in Jim Sanderson's fine new story cycle Faded Love. The characters Sanderson weaves in and out of these sometimes side-splitting, sometimes gut-wrenching stories are people whose poignantly-rendered lives resonate long after the last page has been turned.

In this series of linked short stories you will meet folk who inhabit the stark and wild countryside of West Texas, terrain that helps define them as well as the values that elicit many to behave in ways that will startle you. Here are only a few of the characters you will have the privilege of meeting: Otto, a boy who struggles with the slippery nature of words, is captured and tortured by Comanche raiders. Riding with the Comanches is Thomas Jefferson, a black man tries to help Otto. Deputy Sheriff Justan Brady tries in his inept way "to fix Danny Fowler's killing." Dee Price would...

Roger Jackson is a grouch. He drinks too much with the wrong sorts of people. He dislikes where he lives--Beaumont, Texas, a small, humid southeast Texas town caught between a marsh and an impenetrable forest, between racial and social strife, between rival versions of Jesus. He dislikes his job--taking photos of cheating spouses. He dislikes his past. (He could have been a lawyer.) And now, he finds himself entangled in a crime.

When the police find an aging ex-hippie dead from bullet wounds to the head and torso, they find Roger's photos and want his help. Surrounded by a cast of...

Award-winning fiction writer Jim Sanderson has for many years taught university courses in writing fiction. This manual presents the best elements from his courses and is designed to help both beginning and advanced writers of fiction. A bonus in the book is an anthology of short stories written by university students.