I’m by no means an expert, but I’ve found that I really enjoy writing weird westerns. In fact, I even wrote one before I knew what they were. It was sort of modern, sort of set in the past, had western elements and paranormal.
I’ve always loved westerns, being a horse person and all and loving the west but I never really wrote them because I really enjoyed fantasy so much and the two didn’t seem to connect at all.
A couple of years ago I had the good fortune to meet several people who happen to write weird westerns, and learned that the genre existed. This really sparked my interest and led me to meet David Riley who publishes Science Fiction Trails. Chock full of weird westerns! And it got me an anthology invite which prompted my weird western series about my ghost hunting dog.
Basically, weird westerns are westerns with some sort of supernatural/paranormal/alien twist. If you want to check out some good ones, check out Science Fiction Trails. I think David Riley is one of the bigger publishers (if not the biggest) in weird westerns out there.
During my research I found this great site, Legends of America, that has excellent resources for western writers, traditional or weird. Check it out.
So, maybe you’ll discover a new genre to read and write. It’s a lot of fun mixing cowboys and aliens (yep, that movie was a weird western) or dogs and aliens in a western setting (Brown vs. The Martians) and all sorts of other good stuff like vampires, werewolves, etc.
Writer J. A. Campbell 