Elmore Leonard, the Western & Everything In-between ...

Elmore Leonard wins The National Book Foundation's Medal

I couldn't decide whether to post this in Western or M/S/T. Since this Elmore Leonard thread exists and is active, Western won.

Elmore Leonard wins The National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.


Woot!

I love his comment. I also love his books. So, there you are.

Or as Leonard puts it, in his succinct style: "I think I'm a good writer. I don't see any objection to my being on this list."

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The medal will be presented at the National Book Awards in November.

sneaking into this thread to express my great love of Dutch.

One thing I thought was interesting and not broughtup was how Leonard has revived interest int he contempary wester with his Raylan Givens character (introduced in his crime fiction novels Pronto and Riding the Rap, short story Fire In The Hole [from the collection When The Women Come Out To Dance...recently retitled Fire In The Hole...which has a great westernesque tale set after the Spanish American war I believe about a black solider looking for a friend in a western town] and his bestseller last year Raylan). For those not in the know, the TV show Justified is based on this character, a contemporary US Marshal who wears a Stetson, cowboy boots, drives a black Lincoln and carries his gun on his hip. (his boss has a poster from Tombstone in his office )...the whole thing is set in Kentucky mining country and is basically this US Marshal trying to stop a variety of criminal activities, usually involving him shooting someone.

I'm reading Riding the Rap right now (the sequel to Pronto but not neccassary) or watch the TV show which stars Deadwood's Timothy Olyphant as Raylan.

sorry to ramble a little here, I worship at the temple of Elmore Leonard.

bloo: sorry to ramble a little here, I worship at the temple of Elmore Leonard.

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I know what you mean. My latest pays homage:

“I didn’t know what I wanted to be, then I read a book by Elmore Leonard and that was it: I wanted to be a writer.”

“Hang on a minute,” Steve said. He tilted his head back and dropped in five fries. “Okay, this is a two-parter. Ready?”

“Shoot.”

“Okay, part one: what was the book and part two: who’s Elmo Leonard?”

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and

I’m stopping for a minute to mark this down for posterity: I love Elmore Leonard’s writing. Seriously, you don't want to get me started. I love his sense of ‘story.’ I love his dedication to the craft. His body of work has a depth and breadth that sometimes, literally, takes my breath away. And the way he writes dialogue—Jesus, if I could write dialogue half as well—a tenth as well. . .

Okay. Enough with the schmaltz.

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and

“Hey, Mr. Bee, this is a good one. It starts out with this guy who does high dives. Man, that Elmo.”


I smiled. “You’d better not call him that, Steve. I don’t think he’d appreciate that.”


“Yeah, if he ever heard me call him Elmo, I bet he’d say, ‘Not cool, Steve. Now I gotta break your legs.’ ”

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Lol that is awesome

Elmore Leonard

Hi y'all,

I read Harry's musings on Elmore Leonard and some of the replies and couldn't resist jumping in. Mr. Leonard, in my opinion, is America's greatest writer living today. The man is so multi-talented it's scary. For anyone who aspires to the tradecraft known as genre fiction writing, Mr. Leonard is a must read from his first to last written word. His evolution as a writer could easily be a major course study at any university in America. For anyone not familiar with "Elmore Leonard's Ten Rules of Writing" I suggest you give it a Google or Yahoo and save it for part of your fiction writing bible...captflash

I'm suffering through Raylan, thinking that my favorite old writer is, well, getting old. I loved his crime stuff set in Detroit. What characters!!!

I believe that his Western shorts were his best stuff, though. Hurrah for Capt. Early is writing at its best.

captflash said:

. . .For anyone not familiar with "Elmore Leonard's Ten Rules of Writing" I suggest you give it a Google or Yahoo and save it for part of your fiction writing bible...captflash

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Best advice: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Man, that Elmo.

I just got the collection that contains "Fire in the Hole". I'm hoping I can see the origins for Justified in it. I loved Boyd in the first season. Now I don't recognise him at all. So maybe I can understand him better by reading this short. Is he in any of the other books?