PLEASE SEE BELOW FOR OUR BIG CHRISTMAS GIVEAWAY!
Christmas to me has always meant a beach. Yes, you read that correctly: a beach. My grandmother was one of 11 children and by the time I was of school age, the surviving siblings had all moved to Florida to escape New York winters. This meant that, in order to be together for the holiday season, our immediate family was piled into a car for the three day drive from NY to Florida—the beach. Continue reading
Back in the late 1970s I was traveling through New Mexico with my parents, die- hard New Yorkers who knew nothing of the west. We happened upon the trading post at Gallup, where my mother started chatting with the lady owner. All I remember from that conversation was the fact that my mother was totally astounded that the woman had never heard of Broadway in NYC. Here was evidence of the singular culture of the west, more isolated then and certainly unique, and it was all around me in that shop. The fact that, here, there was no yearning for The Great White Way as Broadway is occasionally called, but something more positive, more organic, moved me completely. Continue reading
Posted in History of the West, Western Culture
Tagged Cortez, David Reeves, Fred Harvey Company, Gallup, Herman Schweizer, Kirk Smith, N.M., Native American Jewelry, Navajo, Santo Domingo, UITA, Zuni
I have as my guest today Karen Casey Fitzjerrell. 
A Texas girl through and through, Karen was born near Houston in Baytown, near the tip of the Houston Ship Channel, and now lives in San Antonio. Formerly a freelance writer for several newspapers and regional magazines in the state, she recently turned to getting her fiction works out from under the bed and into the public eye for us all to enjoy. Continue reading
Spanish style costume in Rejoneo
Back in January I had the good fortune to be traveling in Colombia. I found myself up in coffee country at the time of a festival in Manizales and this, to my great interest, included a type of bull fight called a rejoneo. In rejoneo, the matador, now called a rejoneador, is on horseback and it is his skill as a horseman that is the better part of the performance. One of the finest exponents of this sport, Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza, was in Manizales; he travels with a stable of 9 horses, several of which got a chance to strut their stuff in the course of the corrida. Continue reading
Born in New York, Andrea Downing has only recently returned from the UK where she lived for most of her life. Having traveled extensively through Europe, Africa and Latin America, she now divides her time between NYC and the east end of Long Is., punctuated by frequent journeys out west---the area of the USA she loves best. Her first book, Loveland, was published August 10th by The Wild Rose Press.
My historical western romance, now available in paperback from the Wild Rose Press and Amazon Learn more →
