At the end of my blog I usually sign off with: My name is Wally Runnels and I write Border Pulp. But what the hell does that mean?

Pulp magazines started in 1889. Their name derived from the cheap paper they were printed on,  a very inexpensive grade of newsprint’ the stuff newspapers are printed on today.   Glossy covers offered sensational, lurid art in color. As a boy sitting in my uncle’s barbershop I was shocked at the images, yet deeply fascinated by the prurient thoughts they provoked. Wow. Partially clad ladies, always in distress, cornered by a thug-like man. Those girls were nothing at all like my mom or my aunts who wore hats and gloves.

To help defray the cost, pulps   offered the reader three or four stories, often dark or speculative in nature.  People like Ray Bradbury, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Edgar Rice Burroughs had their words printed in these publications, eventually exposing their talent to a larger audience and Hollywood. Writers hungered to have their stories accepted by these journals.

Black Mask was considered to be the top of the Pulp food chain where soon-to-be leading writers could be read. Another called Spicy Adventures has a title that pretty much says what it was about. Most were action adventure, western, crime and detective, sci-fi, with all the stories taking place in exciting locations.

I vividly remember one issue of Black Mask showed a picture of a Mexican bandit on its cover. This takes me to my stories, which happen above and below the Mexican/American Border in California. I’m from the San Diego area, and I have spent some quality time hanging out around  the border over the years.

Yeah, in my own stories I have a few girls in trouble who get help from guys with questionable pasts. There are shootouts, sex, some of it kind of kinky, and vivid hardcore characters that will stay with you. Some story lines are surreal and may have a paranormal twist, but they are all based on a fictional reality that I call Border Pulp.

My tales are not on pulpy paper, but on a dustless-digital on Amazon Kindle. Maybe I should call my stories Border Digital? I can’t.

My name’s Wally Runnels and I write Border Pulp.