BIOGRAPHY AND TITLES:  JOHN EDWARD AMES

John Edward Ames (aka J. Edward Ames, John Ames, Judd Cole, Dodge Tyler and "writing as" Ralph Compton) is a prolific American writer of novels, short stories and nonfiction articles and books.  Raised in Monroe County, MI, and educated at Eastern Michigan University (B.S. and M.A. in English), Ames taught college English in Colorado and New Mexico before he moved to New Orleans, where he still resides, in 1986. 

A critically-acclaimed writer of western and Civil War historical fiction, Ames also enjoys penning articles on writing technique for The Writer and other magazines.  In 1995, Ames’ historical novel The Unwritten Order (Bantam) was nominated by the publisher for a Heritage Award and the Western Writers of America Spur Award.  He is also a freelance journalist, an interest that evolved from his three years as a newspaper, radio and TV writer in the U.S. Marine Corps, including a stint in Iwakuni, Japan, where he served as a stringer for Stars and Stripes. He is a member of the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Association (USMCCCA), a group of former and active-duty Marine journalists who support and publicize the current work of the Corps' writers, photographers and broadcasters, especially those in combat and overseas.  For more info:  www.usmccca.org.

In 2004 Ames wrote The Real Deadwood (Chamberlain Bros./Penguin), a mix of history and buff lore about Wild Bill Hickock, Calamity Jane, outlaw towns, prospecting, gunslingers, and the perennial "whore with a heart of gold."  Writing under the pseudonym Judd Cole, Ames wrote the entire twenty-three book Cheyenne series.  Under the same pen name he wrote the eight-book Wild Bill series, and as Dodge Tyler the last six books in The Lost Wilderness Tales (about Daniel Boone).  He writes under a "house name" for one of the longest-published western series in America and has also written a novel (Deadwood Gulch, Signet NAL 2006) as the late Ralph Compton, USA Today bestseller of frontier fiction. 

In addition to eighty-three book sales, including six ghostwritten novels, Ames’ short stories and articles have appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, The Writer, The Writer’s Handbook, ByLine, Borderlands 3, Best of Borderlands, the Hot Blood series, Mystery Scene, The Almanac for Farmers & City Folk, Colorado-North Review, Oui, Cavalier and elsewhere.  His Op-Ed’s and features have appeared in dozens of major newspapers and Web sites including Jim Lehrer at Media Bistro, Democratic Underground, Media Channel,  the Christian Science Monitor, The News & Observer, ABC TV Online, The Toledo Blade, Yahoo! News, The Bellingham Herald and Katie Couric’s Morning Blog.  He is also extensively interviewed in Building Believable Characters by Marc McCutcheon, a Writer’s Digest Sourcebook.

A COMPLETE LIST OF BOOK TITLES

The Force

Death Crystal

Spellcaster

The Asylum

The Unwritten Order

The Golden Circle

Soldier’s Heart

Deadwood Gulch

The Real Deadwood (non-fiction)

TRAILSMAN TITLES WRITTEN BY JOHN AMES AS JON SHARPE

I joined Signet/NAL’s popular Trailsman series long after it was started by Jon Sharpe and ably carried forward by veteran western writers such as Ed Gorman, Robert Randisi, James Reasoner and Dave Robbins.  It is these guys who have established the ongoing identity and popularity of one of America’s most famous and widely read frontier heroes, Skye Fargo, the Trailsman.  This series was launched almost 35 years ago and I’ve only been onboard for the last dozen years or so.  Each writer is allowed his own voice and I tend toward a lot of humor in many of these, and a few are outright frontier horror novels (horror being my favorite fiction genre).  Although these books are fast-action they’re also grounded in historical themes and events of the pre-Civil War frontier.       

#262:  Badland Bloodbath

#265:  Dakota Death Rattle

#277:  Hell’s Belles

#281:  New Mexico Nightmare

#285:  Salt Lake Slaughter

#289:  Renegade Raiders

#292:  San Francisco Showdown

#296:  Six-Gun Persuasion

#301:  High Plains Grifters

#304:  Death Valley Demons

#330:  Tucson Temptress

#339:  Red River Reckoning

#344:  Six-Gun Gallows

#345:  South Pass Snakepit

#348:  Backwoods Brawl

#354:  Nevada Night Riders

#358:  Six-Gun Vendetta

#361:  Utah Deadly Double

#364:  Rocky Mountain Ruckus

#368:  Colorado Crosshairs

#369:  Badlands Bloodsport

#372:  Missouri Mastermind

#376:  New Mexico Madman

#379:  Hangtown Hellcat

#384:  Diablo Death Cry

#386:  Nevada Viper’s Nest

#388:  Borderland Bloodbath

#390:  Devil’s Den

#395:  Black Hills Deathblow

#396:  Dead Man’s Journey

#397:  Riverboat Reckoning

THE CHEYENNE SERIES (AS JUDD COLE):

THE WILD BILL SERIES (AS JUDD COLE):

Dead Man’s Hand

The Kinkaid County War

Bleeding Kansas

Yuma Bustout

Santa Fe Deathtrap

Black Hills Hellhole

Point Rider

Gun Law

Dan'l Boone: The Lost Wilderness Tales by Dodge Tyler (Ames wrote the last six books in this twelve book series, listed below).

#7:  The Long Hunters

#8:  Taos Death Cry

#9:  Warrior's Trace

#10:  The Kaintucks

#11:  Mustang Desert

#12:  By Honor Bound