Thursday, June 25, 2009

Don Coldsmith, R. I. P.

Don Coldsmith - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Don Coldsmith is an American author of primarily Western fiction. A past president of Western Writers of America, Coldsmith has written more than 40 books, as well as and hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles. His “Spanish Bit Saga,” a series of related novels, helped to re-define the Western novel by adopting the point of view of the Native Americans, rather than the European immigrants."

Don's death was reported on an Internet list. Very sorry to hear it. He and I had the same agent for a while.

5 comments:

Todd Mason said...

He had a (mildly?) syndicated column, too, apparently:

http://www.emporiagazette.com/news/2009/jun/22/hot_times/

TM said...

I'll make it my name-link.

Anonymous said...

At many a WWA convention I blotted up Don Coldsmith's wisdom. He, Norman Zollinger, Max Evans, and Elmer Kelton are really responsible for my literary education. Don had been everything from a muleskinner to a Methodist minister to an MD, and some of our best talks involved theology, and writing about it in fiction. He wrote deceptively plain prose, devoid of the artifices that authors employ to draw attention to themselves instead of the story, and that is a model I have always followed.

A splendid man and novelist has left us. And by the way: he was a best-seller, too.

Richard Wheeler

George said...

I've read quite a few of Don Coldsmith's books. He was a top-notch writer. Sad to see him go...

RJR said...

I knew Don, saw him at many WWA conventions found him to be a gentleman.

RJR