About Jesse J. Elliot
Jesse J Elliot writes about what she has loved to read all her life—the Old West—except her stories always have a strong female protagonist. She has published seven stories in Frontier Tales Magazine, and four of these were voted short story of the month. Another short story, “Timeless,” was published in A Mail-Order Bride for Christmas in a Prairie Rose Publication. Her novel about a woman sheriff in New Mexico in the 1880s, Death at Gran Quivera will be republished in 2025. Her other book, originally published by Outlaw Press, is called A Switch in Time, and it too will be republished on Amazon.
In her previous life, Jesse taught K-6, community college classes, and Educational Methods at the University of New Mexico. In her free time, she reads, travels, C/W dances, and visits her family ranch in New Mexico with her husband and dog, [One-Eyed] Moody.
View Recommended Western Writings
Recommended Western Writings
Riders to Cibola by Norman Zollinger
This novel is a sweeping family saga that begins in 1905 when fifteen-year old Ignacio Ortiz, a Mexican orphan, joins Douglas MacAndrew’s D Cross A ranch in New Mexico. As seen through the eyes of Ortiz, the family is faced with Mexican revolutionaries, two world wars, western expansion and racism. Each generation of the MacAndrew family must deal with internal turmoil among its members, while Ortiz becomes a stable influence because of his quiet, faithful demeanor.
Passage to Quivira by Norman Zollinger (Author)
After several alcohol-soaked years in New York as a struggling artist, Ian Jennings MacAndrews returns to his birthplace--New Mexico's Ojos Negros Basin--and confronts the violent legacy of the MacAndrews clan.
The Virginian – Owen Wilson
The most well-known work by American author and historian Owen Wister, "The Virginian," was first published in 1902. In the end, Wister creates the prototypical cowboy, who is a natural aristocrat, set against a highly mythologized version of the Johnson County War, and takes the side of the large landowners. The novel is a complex mixture of people, places, and events dramatized from experience, word of mouth, and his own imagination. It is rife with idiomatic wit and moral drama. It is widely known that the book contains the first "shootout" in American fiction.
It was chosen as the best western novel of all time in 1977 by the Western American Writers. It is still a masterpiece of frontier literature, bursting with action, romance, and atmosphere.
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty
The Pulitzer Prize-winning classic of the American West that follows two aging Texas Rangers embarking on one last adventure. An epic of the frontier and rich with complex characters, is the grandest novel ever written about the last defiant wilderness.
Journey to the dusty little Texas town of Lonesome Dove and meet an unforgettable assortment of heroes and outlaws, whores and ladies, Indians and settlers. Richly authentic, beautifully written, always dramatic, Lonesome Dove is a book to make us laugh, weep, dream, and remember. (Amazon review)
Louis L'Amour's Collection
My favorite is , the The Sacketts, the Quick and the Dead, and .If you want a hot love scene that may or may not have taken place, check out the .
The Santa Fe Passage by Jon R. Bauman
In 1823, one long trail connected the backwater colony of Mexico with a booming America. Here, only the most daring, ambitions and lucky would survive—transporting goods at enormous risks and for bigger profits.
This novel captures the forces of history, politics, nature and religion at the foot of the Sangre de Cristos Mountains in New Mexico. (From the book’s cover.)
Women on the Westward Trails
(These are only a drop in the bucket!):
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Westward the Women by Nancy Wilson Ross
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Trail of Thread: A Woman's Westward Journey (series 1-3) by Linda Hubalack
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Covered Wagon Women, Volume 1: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1849 (Covered Wagon Women, 1) Paperback – September 1, 1995
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For romance, mail-order brides, and happy endings check out Prairie Rose Publications
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For time travel, adventure, and romance in Yellowstone and Grand Tetons, check out Peggy L. Henderson
My Favorite Movies
The Virginian
A cowboy finds himself betrayed by his best friend and must choose between bringing him to justice and alienating the pretty schoolteacher he is in love with. I liked the movie, but I loved the book. Based on the events in the book, I honeymooned by camping in Yosemite.
The Searchers
In this revered Western, Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) returns home to Texas after the Civil War. When members of his brother's family are killed or abducted by Comanches, he vows to track down his surviving relatives and bring them home. Eventually, Edwards gets word that his niece Debbie (Natalie Wood) is alive and along with her adopted brother. The uncle, John Wayne, has a more insidious need to find his niece as he doesn’t want to save her, he wants to. . .
Shadow Riders
Two brothers in the period immediately following the Civil War return home to discover that their family, including a younger brother and the brothers' fiancee, have been kidnapped by a marauding band of rebel guerrillas who refuse to accept the defeat of the Confederacy. Aided by their uncle, they set out to rescue the family.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
The true story of fast-draws and wild rides, battles with posses, train and bank robberies, a torrid love affair and a new lease on outlaw life in far away Bolivia. It is also a character study of a remarkable friendship between Butch - possibly the most likeable outlaw in frontier history - and his closest associate, the fabled, ever-dangerous Sundance Kid.
Stagecoach
(1939)
A group of people traveling on a stagecoach find their journey complicated by the threat of Geronimo and learn something about each other in the process. John Wayne made over 50 films in the 1930’s. Stagecoach and his first movie, The Big Trail, I think, were his best films. In Stagecoach, the characters are well developed, believable, and memorable.
3:10 to Yuma
A small-time rancher agrees to hold a captured outlaw who's awaiting a train to go to court in Yuma. A battle of wills ensues as the outlaw tries to psych out the rancher. The 2010 remake is amazing though original movie is excellent as well. Get a hanky ready.
Tombstone
Wyatt Earp and his brothers, Morgan and Virgil, have left their gunslinger ways behind them to settle down and start a business in the town of Tombstone, Ariz. While they aren't looking to find trouble, trouble soon finds them when they become targets of the ruthless Cowboy gang. Now, together with Wyatt's best friend, Doc Holliday, the brothers pick up their guns once more to restore order to a lawless land.
True Grit
Following the murder of her father by hired hand Tom Chaney, a 14-year-old farm girl Mattie Ross sets out to capture the killer. To aid her, she hires the toughest U.S. marshal she can find, a man with "true grit," Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn. I like the recent version with Jeff Bridges better than the John Wayne one.
Blazing Saddles
Mel Brooks’s Blazing Saddles lampoons the Western genre, mocking its conventions as well as its racist undertones. A Greedy Magnate, Hedley Lamarr plans to steal a plot of land away from the kindly townsfolk of Rick Ridge. He appoints a Black sheriff named Bart, beautifully played by Cleavon Little. Hysterically good--this is Mel Brooks at his best. I still continue to sing some of Lilly Von Schtup’s “I’m Tired.” Gene Wilder was excellent as was the rest of the cast.
Two mules for
Sister Sara
An American mercenary who gets mixed up with a nun and aids a group of Juarista rebels during the puppet reign of Emperor Maximilian in Mexico.
High Noon
An exceptionally well-written film with great, great acting and insight into human frailty. On his wedding day the Marshal, Will Kane must deal with a ruthless band of outlaws who had escaped from prison and are out to get him. Abandoned by his town of which he had protected and in conflict with his bride who is against killing of any kind, Kane must decide by high noon what he should do. A perfect ending for a story like this.
The Quick and the Dead
A mysterious stranger (Sam Elliott) befriends and protects a settler (Tom Conti) and his wife (Kate Capshaw) in 1876 Wyoming, creating a conflict between the gentle father and the ever-ready cowboy. A great love scene between Elliot and Capshaw that isn’t even shown stirs the imagination.
Cowboys and Aliens
Bearing a mysterious metal shackle on his wrist, an amnesiac gunslinger wanders into a frontier town called Absolution. He quickly finds that strangers are unwelcome, and no one does anything without the approval of the tyrannical Dol. Dolarhyde. But when Absolution faces a thread from beyond Earth, the stranger finds that he is its only hope of salvation.
The Big Trail
(1930)
Coleman (John Wayne) leads hundreds of settlers in covered wagons from the Mississippi River to their destiny out West. Only a few decades away from this time in American history, I found the dress and events to be more authentic than the clean settlers we see in today’s unrealistic movies on the west. Though I saw the film years ago, I still remember them lowering the cattle down a steep cliff.