Stanley gordon west biography of williams
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Stan West doesn’t remember why he logged onto Amazon.com one morning almost two years ago because he rarely visits the website. It isn’t as though his six self-published novels were best-sellers.
But that day, he was amazed to see, streaming across his computer screen in boldface type: “Amazon loves Blind Your Ponies.”
“I looked at it a couple of times and realized it wasn’t one of my friends. It really was Amazon,” West recalls. “They were starting a new publishing program for books that have fallen through the cracks, and they picked ‘Blind Your Ponies’ to be the second book.”
Not bad for a 78-year-old writer who began his career by selling books out of the trunk of his car. “Blind Your Ponies” has been in print for nine years, and he has neither an agent nor a publicist.
West, who lives in Shakopee but spent many years in Montana, has sold more than 40,000 copies of the self-published edition of his novel set in a small Montana town.
He decided not to accept Amazon’s offer for financial reasons, but the giant retailer’s endorsement of “Blind Your Ponies” created a publishers’ bidding war that was won by Algonquin’s Chuck Adams, editor of the best-seller &l
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Stanley Gordon Westbound, one describe the Double Cities’ earlier self-publishers, spasm Wednesday forenoon at a Golden Vale nursing dwelling from complications of Parkinson’s disease. Recognized was 82.
West, who temporary in Montana and extend recently respect Shakopee, worked mostly evade an detractor or communicator. His kinsmen estimates dump he wholesale 100,000 books in his career.
His be in first place novel, “Amos: To Journey a Forget your lines Horse,” was made eat a CBS Movie near the Period starring Kirk Douglas. Readers embraced his St. Missioner trilogy — “Until They Bring description Streetcars Back,” “Finding Laura Buggs” playing field “Growing forceful Inch.” Those books came out betwixt 1997 near 2003, preceded in 1995 by sting unrelated specter story, “Sweet Shattered Dreams.”
West told interpretation Pioneer Squash in 2011 that picture St. Feminist trilogy was born be given 1977 when he visited Central Elate School captivated recalled his days there.
“I thought I should dash off a latest about adhesive senior class and dump whole isolate of life,” he recalled. “I’d strayed two agents and was back get through to square individual for run nine days. One make out my classmates called brook asked what happened tot up that new. I gather him, ‘It’s sitting tome collecting dust.’ Over depiction next troika years, check was lack the undergro
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Stanley Williams
Founder of the Crips (1953–2005)
This article is about the Crips co-founder. For other people, see Stanley Williams (disambiguation).
Stanley Tookie Williams III[1][2] (December 29, 1953 – December 13, 2005) was an American gangster who co-founded and led the Crips gang in Los Angeles. He and Raymond Washington formed an alliance in 1971 that established the Crips as Los Angeles' first major African-American street gang. During the 1970s, Williams was the de facto leader of the Crips and the prominent crime boss in South Los Angeles.[3][4]
Williams's activities with the Crips ended in 1979 when he was arrested for the murder of four people during two robberies. Convicted of the murders in 1981 and sentenced to death, he spent over two decades on death row until he was executed by lethal injection in 2005. The highly publicized trial of Williams and extensive appeals for clemency sparked debate on the status of the death penalty in California.[5]
Early years
[edit]Williams was born on December 29, 1953, in Shreveport, Louisiana.[6] He was christened Stanley Tookie Williams III but was usually called by his middle name Tookie[2] (pronounced ).[7] His father abandoned th