Hi there. I’m Harvey Stanbrough.

This website is specifically for readers. If you enjoy great period westerns, science fiction, action-adventure, crime, mystery, or detective-PI stories and novels, you’re in the right place.

To go straight to the stories, click Story of the Week in the menu.

As I open this website for readers, I’m writing my 69th novel. I’ve also written 8 novellas and around 250 short stories across several genres. You’ll be seeing some of those in the Story of the Week category (see the menu).

I’ve also compiled around 30 short story collections and several lauded, major-prize-nominated poetry collections and several nonfiction books on the craft of writing. That is in addition to hundreds of articles, essays and blog posts.

Please understand, I’m neither bragging nor complaining. I’m a writer. Writers write. Like mechanics fix engines, plumbers fix plumbing, and doctors fix people. Engineers build bridges and rockets and robots. Me, I’m a writer.

Some Quick Details and Navigation Notes

I don’t see many sites like this one around, and frankly, that’s a shame. You pay my salary. The least I could do is toss you a bonus now and then. On this website, I will do exactly that.

I plan to post a new (to you) short story every week and a new blog post every week or two. (A lot of that is up to you. Let me know what you want to know about.) Eventually all of the blog posts I write for this website (all flavored for you, the reader) will be lumped together under one unimaginative heading, probably Blog or something equally as exciting.

But if you want to learn about some of my characters, you need only click the Characters tab in the menu. That page will contain all the articles I write about the characters. I wouldn’t be surprised if occasionally one or more of the characters stop by and write their own article. Those will be in the Characters category too.

Likewise, if you’re curiious about some of the settings — anything from the Chihuahuan or Sonoran Deserts to the tiny real town of Palominas, Arizona to the small (fictional, sigh) fishing village of Agua Perlado in Guerrero, Mexico, you only need to click the Settings tab in the menu. If you don’t find the setting you’re looking for, email me and let me know you’re interested. Then, shortly, there will be an article on that setting forthcoming.

By the way, I’ve bushwhacked my way through the bend in the San Pedro River where Mac’s ranch headquarters stood in the short story “Adobe Walls.” Oddly, there were signs a house once stood there. Bits of a china service and so forth were scattered about. I kept expecting to find Mac’s old Ranger badge among the rubble.

The setting might also be a dugout cave in the side of an arroyo in the deserts of Texas or a restaurant of bar in Amarillo or the dining venue on the generation space ship The Ark as it wends its way through the vastness of the galaxy. It might be a little cantina in a town in Mexico so small it doesn’t even have a name because if they put up a sign you couldn’t see the village behind it.

I’ll be more than happy to tell you about any of the characters or settings in any of my stories or books. Because I’m a writer. And writers write.

In the menu you’ll also see tabs marked

  • Short Story of the Week (that’s another category that will contain a new short story every week, free);
  • Stories from Novels (stories that were inspired by or spun off of or derived from novels);
  • Novels from Stories (novels that started out as much shorter works or were inspired by much shorter works); and
  • Reading Order for Novels (just what it sounds like)

You might also be interested in my Author Website or Publisher Website. There are some GREAT deals on the latter. And finally, if you’re a writer or an aspiring writer, feel free to check out the Journal. But don’t expect to see a lot of nonsense about outlining and rewriting and getting other people’s opinions about my stories.

You can find information on all of that elsewhere. In fact, it’s like Kudzu vines in Louisiana or Buffel grass in Arizona: you can’t really evade it. But you won’t see it on any of my sites. I don’t do that. I’m a writer. Writers write.

Enjoy your time here at the site, folks. It’s all yours. And if you need anything, email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com.

Harvey