Inspired to Write Through Illustration with Tony Masero

Since the seventies, I have been an illustrator in both advertising and publishing. With a great many paperback and hardback book covers for Westerns, as well as many other genres. Probably the best known is the Edge and Steele Western series. With all the research necessary for the images, it meant a stockpile of historical reference, and as a closet writer it was probably inevitable I would write one at some time.

Then came the supposed retirement - well, sort of. It started with Black Horse Publishing in 2010, and could I do a few covers for them? From there I handed in my scribblings along with the art and then went on to find acceptance with a whole list of other publishers. Last of all came Mike Bray and Wolfpack in 2019, and there was the art for covers to be created in the early days of the company (somewhere between 80 and 90 if memory serves), but luckily, I managed to get some manuscripts through as well.

So now I am in the fortunate situation of both writing and doing my own art as well. All Illustration has changed radically over my professional lifetime, and now AI has taken over from the brush and paint. No, I don’t resent it. In my experience, AI is just another modification in graphic art, as there have been so many before, so I accept it as part of the trend.

Sad to say that many fine artists have gone by the wayside as a result, and I’m sorry to see that, but history tells us that this is the way of evolution in a commercial world. The spinning jenny did the same in the Industrial Revolution, and if you don’t adapt as a result, then it is unlikely you will survive. A hard and cold truth, but that is how it is.

I start early, maybe five in the morning, and work like I have always done, only with a lot less pressure and thankfully an understanding wife. Many authors have said it before about their books – that the last one is always the best one. That, I would guess, is because so much effort has just been spent and so much involvement in the latest book that it is hard to remember what went on before.

My Western ‘Jubal Rhodes’ is just out, and with ‘Canyon of Silence’ to be released shortly. ‘Marshal Demise’, ‘Rio Hombre’ and ‘The Foundling’ are waiting in the wings. And now I am working on a mountain man novel, nominally entitled ‘Jacob Cairns’.

Sometimes there is a source as inspiration, some genuine historical fact or story that I find interesting, but at other times I just start to write, and the story follows.

My own reading is away from Westerns usually and at present I am enjoying the books of Scottish writer William Boyd as I like his literary style. On a lighter note, but also very well written, I am a big fan of the books of the American writer James Lee Burke.

Tony Masero

Saddle up with Tony Masero and grab your next Western read!