Elmore Leonard

I took a collection of Elmore Leonard’s early short stories with me whilst travelling recently and I just got round to finishing them. Leonard’s early work appeared in various long defunct US magazines which I think was an excellent way for  writers to develop their craft. Several of these stories became films, for example Hombre which starred a young Paul Newman, so it was interesting to go back to the source. I think Leonard was fortunate in that he established himself as a writer in the final decade when there was a market for fiction in American magazines. As he said, television killed all that.