Bittercon: Weird Wild West: Where Cowboys Meet the Weird
Given that this is the weekend that Steam Rising came out with my story "Clockwork Heart" in it, it seems oddly appropriate that Dragoncon's Alternate History track should be one of the few that has anything resembling a discussion panel schedule.
"Clockwork Heart" takes place somewhere in the regions generally known as the "Wild West," some time after the end of the Civil War. The protagonist is operating a hotel, a legacy of her deceased husband, and is trying to keep it running after the Union Pacific rail line went through the next town south and the traffic that once followed the old wagon trail through town now goes there.
In writing the story, I found it interesting to look at how technology percolates outward from the great centers of population and innovation and into the hinterlands. Given that this story is taking place in a steampunk world where things developed more rapidly, it made sense that the central technology of the story should first arrive as rumors from Back East, including a traveling preacher who fulminates against unnatural technologies and the meddling of scientists who have no fear of God. Of course that's backstory, since this is a short story and needs to be developed quickly and carried straightaway to the ending. But I did want that sense of isolation, so when the titular character appears on her doorstep, she's faced with a quandary -- and her choices will lead to events that change her, and her town, forever.
However, weird west stories don't have to involve steampunk elements such as giant steam-driven mecha and the like. There's a long tradition of Weird West stories that draw more on supernatural elements than on a more rapid development of technology. Stories where the Wild West meets the ghost story, or ones involving various supernatural beings, whether drawn from European traditions or various Native American peoples' folklore.
For instance, we have the song "Ghost Riders in the Sky," in which a young cowpoke witnesses a group of cattle wranglers chase the Devil's herd across the sky, and is warned that if he doesn't mend his ways, he'll be joining him when he passes from this mortal coil. It draws upon European traditions such as the Wild Hunt (which also probably influenced Washington Irving's story of the Headless Horseman, set in Pennsylvania when it was still a bit wild, not the tamed and cultivated land it would become by the time of the Civil War), but was transmitted to the songwriter by a Native American, possible an Apache, drawing on the Dineh tradition that the souls of the dead ascend into the sky and dwell in what we would call the upper atmosphere.
Raconteur Press has a number of Wyrd West anthologies that explore the intersection of the Western with the ghost story and other folkloric motifs. Although I haven't read any of them, I can guarantee that they will be enjoyable reads -- and I'm hoping to get something written for next year's, now that their 2025 open calls for submissions list is up.