Carp Author Rebecca Rockwell

Women can do anything men can do, obviously. Just the same, not many write Western novels, even nowadays. “I can only think of two I like,” said Rebecca Rockwell, a fourth-generation Carpinterian, who has written three. She wrote her first, In the Shadow of Death Alley, a novel about gangster Emmett Dalton, in three weeks. “It’s funny; now, sometimes I pick it up, and there are things I just don’t remember writing,” she said.

Her next two books took a bit longer ​— ​a couple of months each. Just in case you think she’s just spinning out horse operas, pick one up: They’re not books that pit imaginary Black Barts against chiseled upright sheriffs, either, though all have bullets and hooves flying, gallons of all-American blood, and sagebrush, too. “I do a lot of research on my books,” said Rockwell, who delves through records while writing books about the Daltons, Jesse James’s wife, Zee, or her latest about the Wild Bunch, consulting sources from the Library of Congress to Oklahoma Territory newspaper archives.

Rockwell is also a proud member of the Western Writers of America: “I’m going to their conference this year,” she said, wistfully hoping against hope; she thinks her latest book ought to be considered there for an award or two, never mind whether she’s a woman writing in a man’s previous territory.