Western fiction, plainly told

Hank Redding

Stories about the moment a system decides so a person doesn’t have to.

Towns, ranches, and people at the edge of what they’re allowed to decide for themselves. Restraint over spectacle. 39 stories are free to read here.

Read Gerald, free Browse the books

New open story Gerald 29 min read · Free Twenty-six years after he walked out on his daughter, a sober man returns to the river where they once caught crawdads.

Where to begin

Try one story A finished short story, free. No sign-up. Browse the stories Start a novel The Mercy Contract: three strangers, one torn photograph, and a Nevada town that would rather forget. On Kindle. Start the novel Meet the author Why these stories were held back for years, and why they are out now. Read the letter

Coming next: a new novel

The Low Place

Everywhere he looked, there was a low place.

Arizona Territory, 1908. Nathan Cooper comes home to help his mother sell the place his father, Kane Cooper, left without a will. The stove is already sold. His sister has rehung the kitchen door. And in the bottom of an old chest he finds his father’s Colt Navy, wrapped in blue flannel, empty, just as it was handed to him ten years before.

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