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Steven Law

Steven Law
Steven Law is the pseudonym used by American author and novelist Steven A. Anderson. He is the author of the novels The True Father (Goldminds 2008) and Yuma Gold (Berkley 2011).

Biography
Steven was born in Unionville, Missouri, on January 26, 1966. While a baby, his parents moved north across the state line into Centerville, Iowa, where they lived the next 19 years. Steven attended, briefly, Indian Hills Community College at both Centerville, Iowa, and Ottumwa, Iowa, campuses, and Des Moines Area Community College in Ankeny, Iowa. In 1990 Steven moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where he attended Metropolitan Community Colleges for two semesters, then finished a bachelor's degree in business administration at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC).

It was at UMKC when Steven realized he wanted to be a writer. Through the advisement of one of his English professors, Steven went to a meeting of the Kansas City Writers Group (KCWG). From that day on Steven began to network with professional writers and learn the craft of fiction writing. His first novel, Old Blue, a young adult western written in 1995, was signed by an agent, Howard Pelham, who nearly sold the book to Walker & Company in New York. While making changes suggested by Walker, the publishing house discontinued their western list and Old Blue never went into publication.

This move by Walker & Company seemed to cause an avalanche of similar New York publishing houses to drop their western lists. By the late 90s Steven felt compelled to start a campaign to increase the awareness of the genre he loved to read and write, and he called this campaign 'ReadWest.' Though first introduced as a marketing campaign to the Western Writers of America (which they rejected) Steven realized the Internet was the appropriate place to build his campaign. The Web site became a popular place for existing and upcoming western writers to gather, promote and submit their work. By the year 2000, ReadWest began publishing western short fiction, and found immediate success garnering a Spur Award for publishing "Opening Day" by David Marion Wilkinson.

Steven's theory on the future of western writing and what publishers needed to consider was slow to take hold. Steven's belief was that the traditional, action western had a shrinking market. It was tailored and packaged for older, male readers, and that the western of the future needed to be more character and situationally driven, and not necessarily set in the Old West. Steven encouraged his ReadWest contributors to write contemporary pieces, and stories that would attract readers of both genders and all ages.

Steven decided to create examples by writing his own novel length fiction, which brought about his second novel, The True Father. Originally titled Rodeo Summer, The True Father was considered by Penguin-NAL as an add-on to a series of books titled Rodeo Riders, written by other authors, Mike Flanagan and Dusty Richards. The series was canceled after Dusty Richard's first release, therefore, with Steven's book being third in line, it never saw publication. Steven credits packaging and style to be the reason for the series failure. The books were not packaged to reach the crossover audiences, and the storylines didn't have the depth that Steven believed would be required to be successful.

By 2003 and 2004 the Western genre saw another downturn in sales, and the number of publishing houses that now published Western, mass market fiction, went from more than ten in the 90s, down to five. (As of September 2010, with Dorchester Publishing dropping their mass market western, there are now only three.) In 2005 Steven wrote his third novel, El Paso Way, which was proposed as a three book series. It was Steven's first attempt at an action western, but it was also very different in that the main characters were Chinese and Native American. Though it was thought as salable by his new agent, the timing was bad due to the market downfall. All five of the existing publishers froze their lists from acquisition.

A former NAL editor, who made a move to Amazon.com to head up their Amazon Shorts program, acquired El Paso Way in a shortened version. The Amazon Shorts program was discontinued by June of 2010 and all rights reverted to the authors. ("El Paso Way" and a sequel "Brave Sonora" went to contract      with Penguin-Berkley, the first to be published in 2013).

But what some see as a downfall, others see as an opportunity. In the fall of 2009 Steven began peddling around another non-traditional novel, Return of the Sea, which was set in 1904 and catered to an old Indian legend of a Spanish galleon buried in the desert of southern California. This time his efforts came to fruition, when an executive editor and Penguin-Berkley found the story compelling enough to add to their entirely "traditional" western list. When brought to contract, being that the book would be packaged as a Western, the title was changed to Yuma Gold. The novel was released in November of 2011.

Links
Web site: www.stevenlaw.com

ReadWest Foundation, Inc: www.readwestfoundation.org