John Willingham's new novel, The Last Woman, was released by TCU Press on August 15, 2025. He is also the author of the 2023 essay "Should We Forget the Alamo?: Myths, Slavery, and the Texas Revolution," published by Southwestern Historical Quarterly and cited by the Houston Chronicle and other publications.
"TCU Press publishes original, regional literary fiction...[and] has traditionally published the history and literature of Texas and the American West. As the press has grown steadily in stature and in its ability to bring credit to its parent university over the last sixty years, it has been praised for publishing regional fiction and for discovering and preserving local history." The Last Woman is now available from TCU Press, Amazon, and from bookstores.
See advance reviews from Goodreads here.
Inspired by true events, The Last Woman is the story of three young women whose lives become intertwined as they flee up the Mississippi River to St. Louis. In 1879, two of them take off for Dodge City, reluctantly leaving their friend behind.
Six decades later, the most adventurous soul among them has become the last woman in Tascosa, Texas—once the wildest cowtown in the West. She has been living under an alias and hoping that no one else will track her down.
We meet her when she's eighty years old, re-living and reflecting on her past, the fate of her friends, and the perils of other women for whom escape to the West was an act born of desperation.
"TCU Press publishes original, regional literary fiction...[and] has traditionally published the history and literature of Texas and the American West. As the press has grown steadily in stature and in its ability to bring credit to its parent university over the last sixty years, it has been praised for publishing regional fiction and for discovering and preserving local history." The Last Woman is now available from TCU Press, Amazon, and from bookstores.
See advance reviews from Goodreads here.
Inspired by true events, The Last Woman is the story of three young women whose lives become intertwined as they flee up the Mississippi River to St. Louis. In 1879, two of them take off for Dodge City, reluctantly leaving their friend behind.
Six decades later, the most adventurous soul among them has become the last woman in Tascosa, Texas—once the wildest cowtown in the West. She has been living under an alias and hoping that no one else will track her down.
We meet her when she's eighty years old, re-living and reflecting on her past, the fate of her friends, and the perils of other women for whom escape to the West was an act born of desperation.
“When she herself was gone, those people would be lost even to memory. She would be washed away as well, flowing into a place without time, and so without memory. The last woman held the last memories.”
Here is more Information about John' s op-eds, books, and essays.