Writing the Historical Western Novel – with Aaron Gwyn

In this episode, Landis Wade and guest co-host Paul Kurzeja, have a conversation with novelist and writing professor Aaron Gwyn, about how to write the historical western novel.

Access the episode HERE

Aaron Gwyn’s latest book is “All God’s Children,” an enthralling novel set on the frontier of Texas in the period before the Civil War.

The New York Times says “Gwyn’s novel is a powerful depiction of the rough realities of frontier life, of the vicious influence of racism in a place where ‘men who didn’t dare look at you in daylight might burn you alive come sundown.’”

Aaron is the author of two previous novels, The World Beneath  (W.W. Norton), and Wynne’s War ( Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), and the story collection, Dog on the Cross, finalist for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous magazines, including Esquire, McSweeney’s, Virginia Quarterly Review, Garden & Gun, NPR.com, Esquire.com, as well as anthologies such as New Stories from the South, Best of the West, and Every True Pleasure: LGBTQ Tales of North Carolina.

He is associate professor of English at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte where he teaches fiction writing and American literature.