Writing to Spur Your Imagination
About
The
Author
J.R. Winton was born in Maryland, at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station where his father, a Navy test pilot, was stationed. After his father retired from the military, the family relocated to his mother's home state of New Mexico, where her father had served as a New Mexico State Police Officer.
He grew up in Santa Fe, surrounded by the vast landscapes, ancient history, and diverse cultures of the Southwest; to say nothing of the towering mountains that had once sheltered such famous figures as Doc Holliday, Billy the Kid, or Elfego Baca.
Heavily influenced by his grandfather, he spent much of his childhood in the company of his grandfather’s friends; a colorful menagerie of salty Southwestern village constables, town marshals, and county sheriffs. He followed in those footsteps for a time, serving in private security and for a time in the U.S. Border Patrol.
Always fascinated by the history of the American West, he began writing stories as a young boy; tales of action and adventure, science fiction, and of the West. The first of the Desolation Trilogy of novels, "Infinity's Queen" was published in 2017, followed in quick succession by "Into The Expanse" and "The Gathering Storm" in 2018. The Gunman's Voyage and Draw The Long Bow were later published as short stories via Amazon kindle.
He and his wife Santanita briefly lived in Montana, but they recently came home and resettled in New Mexico.
History
Westerns are a uniquely American genre of story-telling, and growing up in the Southwest, the stories of Louis L’Amour, Elmer Kelton, and Larry McMurtry were a strong influence on me. But while still a young boy, I was introduced to science fiction through TV shows like Star Trek, and in 1977 I remember sitting wide-eyed next to my mother in the Lensic Theater in downtown Santa Fe, watching Star Wars for the first time. Interestingly, the swaggering figure of mercenary pilot Han Solo reminded me of some of my grandfather’s old-school lawmen compatriots in his laconic way of speaking and his sometimes harsh, cynical worldview; while his status as the pilot of the “fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy”, the Millennium Falcon, evoked my father’s tales of being a Navy test pilot.
As I grew older, I found myself fascinated by the idea of The Frontier. No matter where you looked in history, no matter how advanced the civilization, there was always The Frontier; that area of danger and mystery along the borders of all great civilizations. It was the place that drew the explorers, the soldiers, the fortune seekers, the settlers, and the criminals. It was where the law came from spear and bow, pistol and rifle; where survival itself came from strength, guile, ruthlessness, and boundless courage.
I began to imagine a far future, interstellar civilization, and the Frontier it would surely have. I began to imagine the myriad of stories such a place would inspire, and realized that even in the far future, the spirit of the West would endure.