The biggest influence on me and my writing is Louis L'Amour.  I grew up reading his writing and quickly became addicted to Westerns.  One of the main attractions the genre has is the ideals it represents.  People of the time period stood for something and weren't afraid to show it.   I also became a fan Westerns on the screen.  Clint Eastwood is by far the best actor/director in Western movie making.  From The Outlaw Josey Wales to High Plains Drifter to Unforgiven, his work is provocative, ground breaking and in the case of Unforgiven, completely reinvented the Western genre.  I draw a lot of inspiration from Unforgiven and the character William Munny. I have always had a love for reading and writing and have always accepted the fact that one day I would be a writer.  I would have been an artist, but since the only thing that I can draw is flies, I decided to paint my pictures with words instead.    

Matthew Pizzolato is a member of Western Fictioneers. His short stories have been published online and in print in such publications as: BEAT to a PULP!, The Copperfield Review, PULP MODERN, Frontier Tales Magazine, and The Storyteller. He writes a weekly NASCAR column for Insider Racing News and is a contributing writer for Suite101.com. Matthew can be contacted via his personal website: www.matthew-pizzolato.com or he can be found on Twitter: @mattpizzolato.