From his earliest days, Ben Bridges (whose real name is David Whitehead) wanted to be a writer. Encouraged by his father, he quickly gravitated toward the western. He’s been writing them ever since his first book, The Silver Trail, was published in 1986.
Born in London in 1958, Ben was a teenager when he organized fan clubs for the popular western writers of the day. In 1979, he became a consultant on IPC’s Western Magazine — the first and only magazine of its type ever to be published in Britain. By the early 1990s, he had become such an authority on the genre that he produced the single largest contribution to St James Press’ second edition of Twentieth Century Western Writers, with more than forty critical essays.
Ben has written in a number of genres, producing mysteries, romances, horror and science fiction. Approximately sixty of his ninety books have been westerns, however, and more than twenty of those have gone on to become Amazon No 1 bestsellers. Since 2012 he has been one half of Piccadilly Publishing, the self-styled “Home of Great Western Fiction,” and in 2017 he wrote the film Vermijo, directed by Paul Vernon. Another movie is presently in pre-production.
In 2022 Ben’s contribution to the western was recognized by The Western Fictioneers, and this American organization presented him with their prestigious Life Achievement Award.