Don’t miss Bob Boze Bell and Jana Bommersbach’s lecture and book signing at the Museum’s Cultural Crossroads Learning Center at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, December 13. They will be here to talk about their new book, “Hellraisers and Trailblazers – The Real Women of the Wild West”, a book that was three years in the making. Bommersbach explains that “you don’t have to dig deep to find remarkable stories of the remarkable women of the West—you just have to care enough to dig.
“We know all about the bandits and bad boys, the gunfighters and goons, but not the women who held it all together with grit and spit. The reality is plain: there never would have been a settled West without the women—Native and Mexican women here first; Black and White women who followed—all settling the vast, unknown and scary lands beyond the Mississippi River. Meet some of the women who should be in every history book.”
“I believe she’s absolutely right about the importance of including some newfound worthy women. And she has found plenty! Still, I knew we had to cover the bad girls and the wild women as well, so we’ve included both, to put them in context to each other and hopefully bridge the gap between the two. We both agree on one thing: well-behaved women seldom make history,” says co-author Bob Boze Bell.
Jana Bommersbach is an acclaimed and respected journalist. She’s been a reporter and editor for both weekly and daily newspapers. She’s written books and is a major contributor to an anthology. She has been honored with two lifetime achievement awards as “an inspiration to the state’s media community.” In 2020 Jana was inducted into the Arizona Women’s Hall of Fame.
Bob Boze Bell is the author of “The Illustrated Life and Times of Doc Holliday; Wyatt Earp; Billy the Kid; Wild Bill Hickok and “Geronimo”, as well as the quintessential gunfighter series “Classic Gunfights” I, II and III. Bell serves as executive editor of “True West Magazine” and has made various appearances as a guest speaker on the History, Discovery and Westerns Channels.
