Thursday, December 1, 2011

Coming Soon to The Western Online!

Episode 5 of our Western comic strip, Jud Nelson - Texas Ranger is currently in the works and will be coming soon. It will bring the story "Vengeance Trail" to a conclusion.

However, Jud Nelson won't be going anywhere. When he reaches the end of the "Vengeance Trail," he will be appearing in a new comic strip story, "Gone But Not Forgotten."

We will be adding some new items to The Western Online Mercantile in the coming few days, just in time for Christmas shopping. All proceeds from the store go to pay our contributors.

Thanks for supporting The Western Online and I hope you enjoy our latest updates.

Keep Your Powder Dry,
Matthew Pizzolato

New Western Fiction!

Two new short stories were published today:

"No Place to Run" is a story that will keep you guessing until the end and "Doc's Warning" is a fictionalized account of a report given by Wyatt Earp of an incident that took place in Fort Griffin, Texas between Doc Holliday and Ed Bailey.

There is also a new historical article:

Annie Oakley by Janett L. Grady.

A new installment of our serialized novella, The Call Chronicles: Black Hawk Showdown by Kathi Sprayberry.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Updates at The Western Online

Our three most recent short stories:

We have a new artist featured at the site, S.L. Estes. Her two pieces of artwork, Horsethief and Rattlesnake are excellent.

We've published two new historical articles by Janett L. Grady about Old West figures you've probably never heard about: Charlie Parkhurst and Marion Hedgepeth.


We have new content in the Review section:We have two exclusive interviews:

Mitchellsville by J.S. Bell

If you haven't read our short story, Mitchellsville by J.S. Bell, you owe it to yourself to check it out. It's a powerful story of racism and heroism and one of the most compelling stories you'll ever read of prejudice in the Old West. A grim indictment of the world around us, both then and now when righting wrongs is never easy.




Tuesday, October 25, 2011

The New Western Online Has Arrived!







Our Associate Editor, Michael T. Pizzolato, designed our newest video. We've posted it on our YouTube channel. Check it out and let us know what you think about it.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

The Western Online Mercantile

As one of the aspects of our anniversary celebration, we have added an online store that we have called The Western Online Mercantile. It's just one of the ways we are (hopefully) going to get the site to generate money so that we can pay our contributors and also be able to raise our payment rates. It is my goal for the site to be able to pay professional rates.

The way the store is set up is quite simple. The company that hosts the store handles everything. When someone orders a product, they make it and ship it to that person. There is nothing to handle on my end. When a product sells, we earn a commission. Of that commission, we pay a small fee to cafepress.com. I don't expect to earn a huge profit from the store, but I still think it is very cool to have The Western Online Flaming Steer logo on all sorts of products.

The items we sell are all quality products. I have ordered some of the items from the store: a mousepad, a tote bag, and a coffee mug. I can attest that coffee tastes much better when consumed from a coffee mug with The Western Online Flaming Steer logo on it.

If you don't like the Flaming Steer, we also offer items with the Showdown at Sundown art, which is the main banner art on the site, as well as our Cartoon. We are planning on adding new products with different art over time. If there is some type of item we don't have that you may be interested in, let us know and we'll see about adding it to the store. Cafepress offers all sorts of products that we can put our logo on.

All proceeds from the store will be funneled back into the site to help us pay our contributors. So help support The Western Online!


The New Western Online Has Arrived!





Have you seen all the new stuff at The Western Online as part of our birthday celebration? What do you think the changes we've made? Be sure to leave us a comment somewhere to let us know what your thoughts!

The Western Online Turns TWO!

In honor of the two year anniversary of the site, a plethora of changes have arrived at The Western Online.

Instead of being a "for the love" market, The Western Online is now a token market. We will offer a token payment of $5.00 per short story regardless of the length and $3.00 for each piece of artwork or article.

In addition to short stories, we will also publish novella length work that we will serialize and post on a monthly basis. Our first novella is THE CALL CHRONICLES by Kathi Sprayberry. The first story "Homecoming" has been published. It will be a seven part series.

As a way for the site to generate revenue so that we can pay our contributors, we are launching an online store through Cafepress.com where we will earn a percentage of the sales called The Western Online Mercantile. You can buy t-shirts, coffee mugs, bumper stickers, calenders and all sorts of cool stuff. We will always be adding new items to the store, so check back often.

As part of our celebration, we have tons of new content. We have added a Western Book Review section to the site, where we will review anything from classic Western novels to new releases.

We have published two new historical articles, one about Bass Reeves and the other about Jesse James, a new episode of "Jud Nelson - Texas Ranger," our Western comic strip, an exclusive interview with writer Kenneth Mark Hoover, some spectacular Western artwork by Ken Consaul, and two new short stories: "A Man Willing to Kill" by J.R. Lindermuth and "The Gringo" by Steve Smith.

I have written a new edition of our editorial article, The Roundup: Bold New Changes at The Western Online. It details all of the changes and our plans for the future.

Be sure to leave us a comment on the blog or somewhere on the site. We'd love to hear from you.

A New Era Dawns Today at The Western Online





Monday, August 15, 2011

Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid

Butch Cassidy is in the news today. There's an article by the Associated Press on Yahoo! News. Supposedly, his "autobiography" was found. Old text, new wrinkles: Did Butch Cassidy survive?

The Western Online has historical articles on Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.

What do you think? Were Butch and Sundance killed in Bolivia or did they return to the United States and live out their lives in peace?

Saturday, August 6, 2011

My Personal West

I'm proud to be a part of Meridian Bridge's My Personal West series.

You can find my essay here: My Personal West by Matthew Pizzolato.

Monday, August 1, 2011

New Western Artwork at The Western Online

We published three new pieces of Western Artwork by our Associate Editor Michael T. Pizzolato. You can find them in his Portrait Category.




Wednesday, July 13, 2011

New Artwork at The Western Online

We published some new artwork today by a new contributor.

Mathieu Mallet, 15, is just beginnning his career as a free-lance artist. This is his first online magazine submission.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

New Content at The Western Online

We published a new short story and a new piece of artwork today.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

New Content at The Western Online

We published a new short story by David Harry Moss: The Bad Gun.
It's an excellent coming of age story that I'm sure you will enjoy.

There's also some new Western Artwork done by our associate editor Michael T. Pizzolato. This one is titled "Widowed by War."

Stop by the site and leave us a comment. We would love to hear from you.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Updates at The Western Online

We published a new edition of The Roundup:

We have two new short stories:

If you missed any of the short stories we've published in the past few months, stop by the Fiction Page of The Western Online and stay awhile. You won't be disappointed.


Sunday, January 2, 2011

Lots of New Material at The Western Online

We published an excellent short story today by Gary Busler titled "Strawberry Moon."

We've also published a plethora of Western Artwork for your viewing pleasure. We are featuring artwork by Elias Montakis, an artist new to The Western Online. Elias is a very prolific artist who does excellent work. He has 14 pieces of Western Artwork for your enjoyment.

Also, our Associate Editor Michael T. Pizzolato has some new Artwork as well.

And last but not least, we have a very big announcement to make....