Quote of the Day (Elmore Leonard, on How He Used Research to Become a Published Writer)

“I wrote about a gunsmith that made a certain kind of gun. I have no idea now what the story was about when I sent it to a pulp magazine and it was rejected. I decided I’d better do some research.  I read On the Border with Crook, The Truth about Geronimo, The Look of the West, and Western Words, and I subscribed to Arizona Highways. It had stories about guns—I insisted on authentic guns in my stories—stagecoach lines, specific looks at different little facets of the West, plus all the four-color shots that I could use for my descriptions, things I could put in and sound like I knew what I was talking about.”—Crime and western novelist, short-story writer and screenwriter Elmore Leonard (1925-2013) quoted in Gregg Sutter, “A Conversation With Elmore Leonard,” in The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard (2004)