As a writer, new Lometa resident Mike Kearby would love for legions of students to purchase his Westerns. Mostly, though, he just wants them to read — no matter what the topic.

Kearby, an award-winning novelist who recently moved with his wife, Raye, to property the couple purchased west of Lometa, matches his enthusiasm for telling suspenseful stories with his passion for kindling in young people a love of reading.

Growing up in the 1950s, Kearby developed his hunger for hearing and telling exciting stories at the age of five, when he spent a week during the summer at his grandparents’ home. At night, in his grandparents’ back yard — where they moved their bed during the summer to escape the heat of a house without air-conditioning — Kearby reveled in the tales his grandmother told.

Soon, he turned to comic books, novels and almost any other written works he could acquire, finding the excitement many children today seek in DVDs and other electronic devices.

“We didn’t have those things,” Kearby said, “and reading was the pleasure. It was something that was instilled in me from a young age.”

A retired Texas educator who taught reading for 10 years, Kearby has given more than 400 presentations to English and history classes about the benefits of reading. That activity, more than standardized tests and rote memorization, he believes, forms the foundation of true learning and flourishes best when encouraged as part of an education directed by local school districts, rather than state and national authorities.

For about 80 percent of students, Kearby said, reading does not develop naturally or easily. Nevertheless, he encourages students to devote a half-hour to an hour a day to reading — whether books, magazines, newspapers, or articles on an iPad or Blackberry.

“That’s where you really learn ...,” Kearby said. “If I can get a kid interested in reading, over time they’ll do better in school.”

The new Lampasas County resident does his part to promote and produce literature — specifically Western fiction. The author of seven novels — including “Ambush at Mustang Canyon,” selected in 2008 as a Spur Award Finalist by the Western Writers of America — Kearby is preparing for Dorchester Publishing’s November release of his work “The Taken” in e-book form. The trade version of the novel will be available at a variety of major bookstores and online vendors in 2011.

Kearby also is working toward the completion of “Texas Tales: The Revolution,” a graphic novel for seventh-graders due for release in January by Texas Christian University Press. The book, with illustrations by artist Mack White, focuses on the battle of the Alamo and other key moments in the Texas Revolution. Told in large part from the points of view of Enrique Esparza — who survived the siege of the Alamo at age eight — and of 15-year-old William King, the work is intended to generate interest among youth in Texas history.

“I’m trying to make it to where they can relate to kids their age,” Kearby said, “because they’re more likely to enjoy it that way. More than anything, it’s to show those kids who are so close in age to the kids we’re trying to affect reading the book.”

Just as he hopes “Texas Tales” will help students feel a close connection to historical figures, Kearby attempts to give aspiring writers personal experience in the bookmaking process through The Collaborative Novella Project, which Kearby began in 2007.

The annual endeavor, now funded by Western Writers of America, brings together talented students from 10 schools of all sizes to write a novel as a cooperative effort. In a September meeting at Tarleton State University, the students from each school are assigned one chapter of the book to write. The first school’s 1,200- to 1,500-word chapter is due after 10 school days. Students from the next school read the chapter before continuing the story and submitting their chapter within the next 10 class days.

Writing typically continues until mid-March, and then participants have about four weeks to publish the work, which features a student- produced title and cover design. Each member of the program receives a copy of the book before summer vacation begins.

The project teaches not only creativity and adaptability, but also the more quotidian responsibilities of a writer — like meeting deadlines — Kearby said.

“So if they want to be writers they have a leg up,” the author said of Collaborative Novella Project entrants, “because they understand the process of how a book comes to market.”

As reading habits change and book-buying populations age, that marketing process continues to evolve dramatically, Kearby said. As part of efforts to cut costs and attract readers, mass-market publishers and the writers whose works they publish are tinkering with everything from the size of paper used for books to the types of sentences that fill the novels’ pages.

The days of successful authors who write page-long, adjectivefilled descriptions of stories’ settings likely have ended, Kearby believes. People still love compelling stories, though, the writer said, and he thinks authors can succeed if they catch readers’ attention immediately and keep them turning the pages of their books.

With its gunfights, rugged characters and vivid contrasts of heroes and villains, the Western genre provides Kearby plenty of fodder for crafting adventurous plot lines. Inspired in part by a family background in ranch work and rodeos, he draws his fiction material from true historical accounts more than anywhere else.

A novel that focuses on Western blood feuds, for example, was inspired by the experiences of the Olive family, who ranched in frontierera Williamson County.

“It’s pretty easy to write when these things actually happened,” Kearby said.

The author devotes about half of his six-month-per-book writing time to historical research. By familiarizing himself with the people — white, Mexican-American and American Indian — who populated the frontier, Kearby learns the issues they faced and develops strategies for communicating to his readers’ those 19th-century Westerners’ struggles, failures and triumphs.

“To be a good writer you have to be a voracious reader,” Kearby said. “If you don’t read, you’ll never be a good writer. It’s just that simple.”

A historical perspective helps the Texas author develop his favorite themes: hypocrisy in society, cultural misunderstandings and the problems that result from trying to impose one’s way of life on others.

Kearby tries to ensure that his works reflect multiple -- often conflicting -- perspectives fairly, and he enjoys reflecting on concepts of fate and free will.

“‘Can a man escape his own time, or is he doomed to live within his cultural confines?’” is a key question Kearby’s works raise, the author said. “That’s a huge theme, and it’s one that kids really relate to.”

Although the United States continues to urbanize and to adopt a faster pace of life, the conflicts and characters central to Western action novels remain relevant for young book fans, Kearby said.

“Kids still like to read about Indians,” he said. “Kids still like to read about cowboys. Kids still like to read about horses.”

Actually, as long as they enjoy completing books about anything, Kearby knows he has succeeded.