Women of the Weird West

by K.C. Grifant (Editor), Eugen Bacon (Contributor), Jennifer Brody (Contributor)

Saddle up. The Old West is weirder than you think.

In this bold reimagining of the Old West, dive into haunted canyons, frontier towns hiding cosmic horrors, vast deserts, and far-flung worlds where women take center stage.

Women of the Weird West features 25 original speculative poems and short stories set in landscapes both familiar and strange. Gunslingers, outlaws, dreamers, and survivors face overwhelming forces both human and supernatural.

Subversive and genre-bending, this anthology captures the wonder, violence, and resilience at the heart of the Old West while featuring women who were all too often left off the page.

Edited by KC Grifant and with a foreword by Kasey Lansdale, the book features short stories and poems by: Eugen Bacon, Jennifer Brody, V. Castro, K.M. Chavez, Deborah Daughetee, Sarah Faxon, Jendia Gammon, Anastasia Jill, R.J. Joseph, Nicole Givens Kurtz, Angela Liu, Christine Lucas, Anna Madden, Tiffany Morris, Donna J.W. Munro, SJ Myles, Nico Martinez Nocito, Cynthia Pelayo, Grace Quon, Stephanie Rabig, Rebecca Rowland, Tammy Salyer, Lisa Timpf, Angelica Urquizo and Mathilda Zeller.

Perfect for readers who enjoy supernatural westerns, dark fantasy, cosmic horror, historical reimaginings and speculative fiction.

Genres: Horror, Westerns, Fiction

216 pages, ebook

Expected publication June 16, 2026

About the author

KC Grifant is a Southern Californian author who writes internationally published horror, fantasy, science fiction and weird west stories for podcasts, anthologies and magazines.

Her writings have appeared in magazines and podcasts including: Andromeda Spaceways Magazine (cover story for issue #70), Unnerving Magazine, Aurealis Magazine, Fission Magazine, Cosmic Horror Monthly, Dark Matter Magazine, Tales to Terrify, the Lovecraft eZine, Sley House Podcasts, and many others.

In addition to a Weird West horror novel, MELINDA WEST: MONSTER GUNSLINGER (Feb 2023), she has also written stories for dozens of anthologies, including: Chromophobia; Dancing in the Shadows: A Tribute to Anne Rice; Musings of the Muse; Field Notes from a Nightmare; The One That Got Away; Six Guns Straight From Hell; Trembling with Fear: Year One; Shadowy Natures; Beyond the Infinite: Tales from the Outer Reaches; and the Stoker-nominated Fright Mare: Women Write Horror.

In addition, she is a member of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA), as well as the co-founder of the Horror Writers Association (HWA) San Diego chapter, an organization that helps to connect writers and fans of horror literature.

Reviews

[2raccoonsinacoat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Super imaginative spin on western/frontier storytelling with strong female characters, but ultimately too disturbing and inconsistent for me.

This was my first foray into Weird West stories and it’s a genre I could really get into. I loved the representation—strong female characters, multicultural characters, LGBT; all wonderful and filling a very empty gap in popular western lit. As with many anthologies, this was hit-or-miss. The horror and fairy tales were my favorite, I think “Bountiful Harvest” and “Orphans and Outlaws” were standouts. The writing in some of the short stories was strong and I can tell the editor put a lot of thought into the order. The weak entries, though, were pretty glaring, and I wasn’t drawn into any of the poetry. Unfortunately, also several veered into unnecessarily disturbing territory for me. I’m not squeamish but I’m sensitive to animal cruelty/death and I found it to be pretty overindulgent and without purpose in several of the stories. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone sensitive to that stuff.

Not bad and I snatched a few authors from this for my TBR, but this left me feeling more disturbed than intrigued.

Thank you to Brigids Gate Press and NetGalley for providing an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

[meghin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Brigids Gate Press and NetGalley for the ARC of this anthology!
I love that each little story was accompanied by an author’s note! For some of the stories, I felt like the note was almost necessary for me to understand what the author was portraying exactly but even without the notes, the emotions were there every time! There were visual details that pulled me into the whole western atmosphere. This was one of my favorite anthologies! I loved each of the women’s storytelling abilities. I enjoyed their writing as well as the feeling of being transported into old westerns. There are some stories still lingering/haunting me. I particularly enjoyed one story about monsters/demons and the Chinese culture of burying their loved one’s bones. These are stories and poems I will want to reread in the future. Although some are haunting, as a woman, I finish reading feeling empowered in a way. This anthology is bold and unique. It makes you feel as if women were at the center of old westerns the whole time but in the background hiding yet resilient.. the supernatural aspect of some of the stories made mixing genres of this one fun and unputdownable. I also really like the cover of this one! Thanks again for the reading opportunity!

[★ molly ★]

e-arc received

[Chewable Orb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Women of the Weird West Edited by KC Grifant
4🔮orbs
Est. Pub. Date: June 16, 2026
Brigids Gate Press, LLC



Looks can be deceiving…

💡 Orbs Prologue: I arrive in Mawson’s Creek, a desert community smelling of desert sage and yarrow. Orbina is my name. I hear you snicker, but dear reader, you must understand I am not a person to trifle with. A leather strap attaches menacing spurs made of my victim's teeth, and my boots are embossed with rhinestones that shine like a disco ball. Make no mistake, I am very efficient at my job, and I do it with the utmost flair. I am a bounty hunter of sorts, and my lasso is made of carnivorous vampiric teeth, ready to feed upon my victim’s bodies. No, I fear nothing…

🧐 A small glimpse: A solid collection of wacky western stories where women are the main characters. As if that would be enough to satisfy most readers’ curiosity, KC Grifant has curated an ensemble of stories/poems that stretch the boundaries of multiple genres, taking the classic western tropes to new and exciting heights. Get ready to saddle up! This isn’t your everyday horse ride to Tombstone. Jagged waves of vitriol await, and women’s mistreatment remains inexcusable. The hunted become the hunters, offering a glimpse of payback in numerous horrifying forms. Of note, the following are stuck in my mind:

Slender, Silver Cylinder by Sarah Faxon: Sometimes it pays to cheat. 5/5

How To Kill A Yaoguai by Angela Liu: Women chomp ghouls like Ms. Pac-Man. 4/5

Turquoise Waters by Nicole Givens Kurtz: Two women seeking freedom come across bandits seeking violence. 4.5/5

The Legend of Granny Needlesong by Christine Lucas: Granny takes out her knitting needles, arming herself with colorful tunes with which to engage. 4.25/5

👍 Orbs Pros: An indigenous feel! A tribal flavor permeates throughout. Female empowerment galloped forth from beginning to end, creating an interesting dynamic in harsh environments. Diversity! Poems and short stories with their own creative spins on the Wild, Wild West, with females firmly driving the wagon.

👎 Orbs Cons: As with most collections, there were a few that missed the mark. That is to be expected, but it broke the sense of immersion occasionally. Because of the cross-contamination of genres, a few stories just felt a bit too ambitious, whereas perhaps it might have been better to focus on a more streamlined approach. However, creativity must be applauded, for these storytellers are taking a risk and not playing it safe.

Recommended: I enjoyed this group of stories. Some had me laughing, others had me frightened, and at the end of the day, I remained entertained. I can recommend this to anyone who enjoys reading some of the macabre weirdness that authors can create.

💡 Orbs Epilogue: "Are you Spades?" My intuition tells me by the look of a white Stetson hat with a hand-stitched spade symbol resting upon the grizzled head of a man seated at the bar that, indeed, this is Spades. “Why, what can I do ya for, Miss?” as some chaw sneaks out of his lip in reply. “Name is Orbina. I hear you been creating a ruckus. You can come quietly, or I can put you down. Makes no difference to me!” “Is that so?” His pretentious nature has gotten the best of him. Hurriedly reaching for his Colt 45, he remains off guard. The sun rays shimmer off my jeweled boots, and a well-directed shine has rendered him temporarily blind. Before he can fire his weapon, my lasso of flesh-thirsty maws has engulfed his entire frame, rather like a bunch of angry piranhas ravaging a victim in shallow, blood-soaked water. One thought crossed my mind. “Why do men always have to be so difficult?”

Many thanks to Brigids Gate Press, LLC, for the ARC through NetGalley. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[A Reader's Plight · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review of the Women of the Weird West anthology edited by K.C. Grifant

Thank you very, very much to NetGalley and Brigids Gate Press for this eARC! I had a wonderful time reading it.

This review is a little different in formatting from my normal reviews because this is the first time I'm reviewing an anthology (also the first time I've ever finished an anthology). It's hard for me to do my usual ratings of things like scare factor, writing style, interest, etc. because of the fact that there are so many different authors and so many different writing styles, so I'll just give a basic overview of my thoughts on this anthology!

Overall Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Top Three Stories?
This is really tough because there were honestly a lot of stories that I really thoroughly enjoyed. In no particular order, the three stories I enjoyed the most were Twin Pistons by Tiffany Morris, The Divination of Demons by Rebecca Rowland, and The Stinger of Hellbinder Gulch by Jendia Gammon.

Would you read this book again?
I would definitely re-read this! In fact, I already have re-read some of the stories because I liked them so much.

Additional notes:
- I really, really enjoyed this series of stories and I knew I would when I got two pages into the editor's note. The majority of the stories were easy to follow and I really loved the premise for all of them. The feminism and sapphic romance portrayed in these stories was absolutely perfect! The time periods and settings were wonderful. I felt that many of the characters were loveable and all of the stories had perfect twists or elements that worked perfect for horror/sci-fi/fantasy (including some shock value moments).
- I absolutely loved how most of the stories had author's notes with the inspirations for the stories. That was a really lovely touch and made things so much more real and fascinating.
- This is the first time I ever read a weird western (actually any western for that matter) and I am absolutely thrilled with it as a genre and will be looking for more.
- There are authors in here that I actually checked out their other works because I was so into their stories in this book.
- I found many of these stories leaving me feeling all sorts of emotions. There wasn't many stories that I didn't feel strong connections with in this story.
- Also, really loved the additional story added by the publishers, though I think I would have liked to see a non-fiction story in there at then end about the inspirations.
- Overall, I think that this anthology is quite wonderful and well-done. I'm so happy I decided to pick this up and I do recommend giving it a read. It promotes diversity and the learning of western history and is well worth the time.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is difficult to put into words my thought on this collection, because it should be said from the outset that I don't think this was a bad collection at all. On the contrary really, it was often quite strong. I found many of the stories compelling and I really found the poetry to be stand-out. My issue with it is more the.. ceaseless of it. It started to become so repetitive that I found myself really having to push myself to pick it back up and force myself through the stories. I was hoping that this would be a diverse collection of vignettes that made me think in new and creative ways about different untold stories from the perspective of women and possibly the supernatural. But given that it is, frankly, a fairly narrow prompt and there are SO many stories in this anthology, all of them began to blend together. The stories as the start were quite strong, but story after story, it felt that they were all largely the same. Instead of vampires, let it be demons. Or old gods. Or ghosts. Instead of a woman running from her family, she's running from her husband, or a group of men, or society as a whole. She finds power within herself, or another woman, or a community of women.

All of these are fascinating in isolation, and taken in isolation, I enjoyed the majority of these stories. But back to back to back, it became an exhausting reading experience, and I felt myself more harshly judging later entries into the anthology simply because their later placement leads me to unfairly compare them to similar stories earlier in the book.

In my opinion, this could have benefited from some editing down. While I enjoyed many of the stories that I got to, the weak ones were quite weak. Removing about a third of the short stories and more evenly redistributing the poems to break up the prose would have gone a long way to make this feel like less of an effort to get through.

[Caitlin Teaches · Rating 4 out of 5]

Westerns have always been part of a genre I know matters deeply to other people but have always been a struggle for me. It's difficult to root for settlers over indigenous people, and the representation of who's stories are valuable is significantly skewed to stoic white men. Women of the Weird West offers a delightful reprieve from those problems and an invitation to explore different worlds within the Weird West genre. It serves as a solid introduction to the genre or a tasting menu if you're already a fan.

The overall quality of the stories are good and fairly consitent, and nothing stands out as a rough read. The addition of poetry in between the prose is a classic choice in a genre anthology that I do always enjoy. There are, perhaps, a surprisingly large number of stories that focus around fae or Celtic mythologies in general, and you are plopped in the middle of some universes with a limited introduction. Both of those are a matter of taste over quality, which was pretty consistently good.

A few highlights:

"My Darling Clementine" is an excellent haunting start, and is followed by a great monster story with "How to Kill A Yaoguai." "The Legend of Granny Needlesong" feels like a western fairy tale and highlights an elderly female protagonist. "Fela'Fela's War" stretches the genre in some of the most interesting ways and won me over the second I knew there was a ride-able ostrich that was an absolute terror. "Self-Preservation" is a excellent little vampire story. "Valley of the Shadow" is the last story in the collection, and is a subtle unfurling story of details inspired by a real life history. It offers a very necessary perspective to the collection.

Thanks to Netgalley and Brigids Gate Press for the ARC of this book.

[Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always find it exceedingly difficult to rate an anthology – how am I supposed to judge it? By which story I enjoyed the most? By average enjoyment? By adherence to the theme? Unfortunately, this usually means I give the collection a 3 as the average score, even if certain stories would rate more if they were standing alone. So, let that be some context for my rating.

STORIES OF PARTICULAR NOTE:
+How to Kill a Yaoguai by Angela Liu | very cool concept that was executed well, a good “mic drop” ending line. IMO, a good short story has an ending line or paragraph that really resonates and sticks with you, and this one is a great example of that.
+Bountiful Harvest by Mathilda Zeller | again, a very cool concept that was executed well
+Twin Pistons by Tiffany Morris | got me in my heartstrings with this one
+Fela’fela’s War by Eugen Bacon | somehow the exact opposite experience of Orphans & Outlaws, this actually made me want to go and read the larger works connected to this universe

STORIES THAT MISSED THE MARK:
-The Legend of Granny Needlesong by Christine Lucas | just fell flat for me
-Orphans and Outlaws by Tammy Salyer | This is part of a larger body of work and I really struggled to get past the required exposition shoved in to bring the reader up to speed if they’d never read this series before.
- The Divination of Demons by Rebecca Rowland | very cool concept but a mellow end
-Soldaderas by V Castro | very cramped, would be much better served as a novella or full-length novel

If not listed above, I was largely indifferent. This includes most, if not all, of the included poetry. The rare times I read poetry, I want it to really strike me, and none of the included poems did.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection blends together the rich imagery of the Wild West with the weird and the supernatural. It has a mix of short stories, drabbles and poems. I enjoyed the weaving together of different genres for the most part, although in some cases I don’t think it quite worked. Maybe this was a limitation of the length of some of these entries, but some felt like the western element was disconnected from the other elements the author was trying to introduce e.g., Celtic mythology, the fae realm etc. In some of these cases and in a couple of the poems, I didn’t get much, if any Wild West feeling from the narrative. It was only due to their presence in this collection and the clarification sometimes provided with the authors notes that I became aware they had a ‘western’ slant.

I particularly enjoyed ‘How to Kill a Yaoguai’ which utilised Chinese folk beliefs. I appreciated this and similar entries as they highlight the presence of often forgotten about groups of people that were present in the West during the 1800s. I also liked entries that explored spiritualism and other religious movements from the period. My favourite entry however was ‘Calico Sue’s Lament’ which depicted the loneliness of the prairie for women in this period, and how isolating and constricting it must have felt at times.

Overall I enjoyed this collection, some entries I preferred over others, but that’s always the case with anthologies. I enjoyed the different styles e.g., the drabbles and how experimental some of the entries felt, blurring the boundaries between previously separate genres.

I received an eARC from NetGalley and I am voluntarily leaving this review.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual rating 3.5

Women of the Weird West is a short story and poetry collection put together by KC Grifant. The collection features women and people from many different cultures. I really appreciate the diversity in the stories. Mythology from Native American, Chinese, Irish, and many more cultures make an appearance.

Women of the Weird West does an excellent job at painting an eerie western landscape. Many of the stories have some sort of supernatural element to them. It's a very atmospheric collection.

With all short story collections some stories are much better than others. I'd say about 40% of the stories were solid well developed works. But, I do think this collection could have used a bit of a trim; probably about 20% of the stories were poor quality, which ultimately effected my overall rating. I do think that the good stories make up for some of the less interesting ones.

My favorite stories in the collection were: How To Kill a Yaoguai by Angela Liu, Bountiful Harvest by Mathilda Zeller, and Twin Pistons by Tiffany Morris.

Thank you to Netgalley and Brigids Gate Press for the eARC of Women of the Weird West!

[Stephanie Mikkelsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Brigids Gate Press for an advanced reader copy of this wonderfully weird and thought-provoking anthology.

Women of the Weird West is a reimagining of Western tales, where women and underrepresented populations are at the forefront, while the traditional cowboy takes a backseat or is left out altogether. Some works included elements of folktales from China, Ireland, and Mexico, while historical events inspired others. Many of the stories are truly creepy and disturbing, but they all give a sense of women’s empowerment and were very well written.

I loved that the setting was the thread that wove through each story or poem. Though the backdrop may have been the West, each work was uniquely different in tone, legend, and genre. The editor did a wonderful job of varying the type of writing (poem, short story, and drabble–100-word micro fiction), which propelled the anthology along. I also enjoyed the author’s notes at the end of most of the works, which gave each story a deeper meaning and explained some of the inspiration behind the creations.

Now that I have read them all, I will go back and reread many of them with the author’s notes in mind. I definitely have new authors to put on my TBR list!

[julia ⋆｡°✩ shipton · Rating 4 out of 5]

The land will blind you if you’re ungrateful for your breaths.

That’s a hell of an opening for this niche little collection of poems and stories. Exploring women and gender-non conforming written westerns is something I’ve wanted to do for a while now and this was an excellent starter.

As a reader, I appreciate the care that was taken to allow each different culture and aspect their time to shine. The author’s notes also give some necessary background information which is helpful. I do wish there were more supernatural elements in each story, but I do enjoy the variety.

For me, the highlights were the first poem, Clementine, How to Kill a Yoaguai and Calico Sue. I adored these. I could read a whole novel about Calico Sue and her descent into madness in the plains.

Thank you to Brigids Gate Press and NetGalley for access to this e-arc. All opinions are my own and voluntarily given.

[Emily Casilli · Rating 3 out of 5]

These are a collection of very brief short stories. The editor left a note about how westerns lack organic female characters that aren’t the homestead wife or saloon girl. I very much agree with that and western stories need more of that, but regardless of the many authors intentions, these woman in the west stories still read as flat and that may have been because the stories are so brief. All the stories are a collection of weird little folk tales, but read very much as a genre standard to horror without having life. My rating of Women Of The Weird West isn’t based on it being bad, but more that wasn’t remarkable. The monotone of the stories also came off as many horrors written by men that lack character, stuck to 2 dimensional faces. I understand it is hard to pull that in off in a few pages story each, but it made this collect very dull aside from the creature feature aspect of the stories.

[Dustin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short story anthologies are usually a bit of a mixed bag by virtue of them having such a wide breadth of authors and styles. Women of the Weird West is no exception to this, and honestly, I'd say it's even more of a mixed bag than I'm used to.

There's some good stuff in here, for sure. However, the stories are very bog standard overall and didn't dive into the weirdness of the Weird West genre nearly as much as I would have liked. There are also quite a few poems interspersed between the short stories, and I unfortunately tend to have trouble really clicking with poetry.

"How to Kill A Yaoguai", "Bountiful Harvest", "The First Three Deaths of Briar Thrush", and "The Divination of Demons" are the standouts for me here, and I'd recommend giving those a read at least.

Thank you to NetGalley and Brigids Gate Press, LLC for the ARC!

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some great, weird stories in here that evoke the west even if you've never been there. The writing was good, even if some of the stories didn't really come together for me in the end. I also appreciate that this collection focuses on women writers and women's stories.

Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher, for the ARC.

[ghoulhotline · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a huge fan of the westerns AND someone who is tired of how male-centered they are, this book hit the spot! There is a wonderful blend of writing styles, personal voices and cultural stories here. My stand-out favorite was How to Kill a Yoaguai (I could read a whole book about these sisters), but there are so many wonderful poems and stories in this collection!

[mana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gave this collection 3/5 stars because, like most short story collections, some hit and some miss. It was a fun read overall, though! I think the first short story and the poem about Medusa were my two favorites.

[Madyson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and publishers for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Review to come

[Alyssa Snow · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I had hoped for a bit more science fiction/supernatural insertion, this collection was a supremely good time. I love authors with the visionary prowess to not only reimagine history, but write it so convincingly that I would happily swear these stories to be the true events.

It is clear the lead author and editor took great care with selecting each inclusion, and I hold great respect for every culture that was given a moment to shine.

Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for the Advance Reader's Copy in exchange for an honest review!