OFFICIAL SITE OF CHARLIE STEEL AUTHOR

TALE-WEAVER EXTRAORDINAIRE

About Charlie Steel

Some men dream and never live, others live and never dream. Charlie Steel put heart into countless dreams and brought them to life just as he has done with the people in his tales. Charlie Steel has worked since early childhood and has held jobs that young men admire and old men envy. Steel has traveled widely, read voraciously, and has obtained five university degrees, including a Ph.D. He is the common man; he is the eccentric man. Hunting, fishing and the solitude of the outdoors are his great loves. This solitude provides him with the catalyst for many stories. Charlie Steel believes that what one tries to accomplish in life is as important as what one achieves.
Publisher, CONDOR PUBLISHING, INC

TOM SHARP: THE MAN AND THE LEGEND (A Novel)

REVIEW BY SPUR AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR ROBERT VAUGHAN:

It has been said, and rightly so, that a historical novel, accurately and skillfully crafted, can teach history better than the straightforward information in a non-fiction historical text. That is because if the writer is skillful, the reader won’t just read about the characters but will interact with them. They become the reader’s close friends so that the heroism and the pathos experienced can be enjoyed.

Charlie Steel’s excellent novel, TOM SHARP, invites the reader into the life and historical time of the title character. Opening with Tom Sharp being wounded during the Civil War, this historically accurate novel follows him throughout the West, from hunting and supplying meat to the miners to providing telegraph poles to the Union Pacific Railroad in the Dakota Territory.

This is not only an adventure story; it also has a strong and accurate element of romance when Tom returns to Missouri to marry Katherine, a young woman from his past.

Tom eventually builds Buzzard Roost Trading Post, where he trades with and befriends the Ute Indians, particularly Chief Ouray and his wife, Chipeta. As in any great novel, there are fictional characters developed with such skill and depth that they become real to the reader, and in this book, Charlie Steel creates, from whole cloth, fictional characters who interact with actual, historical people.

It is a book well worth the investment of time it takes to read.

Amazon Purchase

COMMENTS BY CHARLIE

Like a giant condor soaring high in the air, a good story should give the same thrill and feeling of exuberance. MY ONE GREAT DESIRE IS THAT ALL OF MY STORIES BE UPLIFTING TO THE READER.  

I suppose all writers have their own unique experiences that cause them to become authors. What contributed to my love of the written word and the  western genre, was the small hidden library belonging to my father.  In it were the books that were in part compiled when my father courted my mother and he gave her gifts of Zane Grey, James Oliver Curwood, Gene Stratton Porter, Margaret Mitchell, and other such literature.  At age seven, I opened that built-in cupboard.  I found inside the books’ covers countless endearments  inscribed by my father to my mother.  I then began reading those books, those gifts of love, and never stopped. Those books transformed me.  From that time of my childhood and into my adulthood, I never went anywhere without a book.

Another influence to becoming a writer started at age five (it was a small town in the fifties). I would walk down to the Saturday afternoon matinee.  For a quarter, and then later for fifty cents, I watched Hop-along Cassidy, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Randolph Scott, and so many others on that large screen.  For me there were four worlds in my childhood.  One was the world of a book, another was the world created on that screen on Saturday afternoons, the third was the magic of forest and stream, and the fourth was real life.

Reality struck eventually.  There were many jobs before, during, and after college.  They ranged from working in a grocery store starting at ten years of age, to construction worker, to salvage diver, to oil field worker, and government work behind the Iron curtain—AND, more than twentyother different occupations.

I began writing at age twenty and, while attending college, I completed many short stories, two plays, and a novel.  It took me eight years to finish my final degree.  I worked for the government and raised a family and from time to time continued to write. My closet shelves filled with completed manuscripts, including many novels.  Eventually, I left work and moved to a large ranch out west.  After thirty-five years my manuscripts fell into the hands of a publisher who continues to edit and print that body of work.

Member Of

Western Writers Of America

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Zane Grey's West Society

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Western Fictioneers

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