Media
The Checker Board Books: Vol. 1, The Life Game Begins and Vol.2, Life’s Endgame, are published by Friesen
Press and available at their website as well as at Readers’ Garden in Granville, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and
e-books.
After a lifetime of writing for pleasure, Nellie Pallagi is now on the authors’ circuit, promoting two just-published
western novels, the culmination of a project that she says has been on her “bucket list” for a long time.
Pallagi’s books, the first two in a series called The Checker Board, follow the adventures of a runaway, Dave
Smith, who learns to survive on an 1880 West Texas cattle ranch. “They are traditional westerns in the manner
of Zane Grey,” Pallagi said. “I love to write, and fiction comes easily to me,” said Pallagi, who uses the pen name Nedler Palaz.
“I started writing westerns in the 1950s when I watched all the awful plots on TV westerns and thought, ‘I can do better than
that.’”
Pallagi said the western setting evokes for her the homeland of her Hungarian ancestors, who came to Newark in
the early 1900s from a tiny town, Tisza Polgar, in northeastern Hungary, where the people were sheepherders and
cattle ranchers.
“Writing about the west has been a lifelong interest,” Pallagi said. “Very few novelists write an old-fashioned
western story, especially one that sweeps over a broad aspect of the growth of Texas and the struggles it took to
protect land and cattle ownership.”
“I feel I was born 100 years too late,” said Pallagi. “I have an affinity with older times, when the
lifestyle and culture were simpler.”
Despite her nostalgic leanings, Pallagi has led an active life, with a 37-year career as a property and casualty
business lines underwriter and an ongoing 40-year membership in POWERtalk International, a non-profit
organization of public speaking clubs. When she won POWERtalk’s International Short Story Writing contest in 2004,
Pallagi decided it was time to publish the manuscripts she had been working on since the 1950s. “This has been my
goal for a long time,” she said.
“These books are full of mystery, suspense, action, history, and a little bit of romance,” said Hebron resident Laura
Beard, who was Pallagi’s proofreader. “I found myself on a roller-coaster of emotions, which made it difficult for
me to put them down, and I’m eager to read what’s next.”
The novels, which return to the lawless period in West Texas following both the Mexican War and later the Civil
War, deal with the struggles around land acquisition and cattle ownership, in which only the fittest survive. The
characters: ranchers, Mexicans and displaced Comanches, are among ranks of villains and good guys, who act out
their roles on stage larger and more poignant with meaning than any of them can conceive.
Press and available at their website as well as at Readers’ Garden in Granville, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and
e-books.
After a lifetime of writing for pleasure, Nellie Pallagi is now on the authors’ circuit, promoting two just-published
western novels, the culmination of a project that she says has been on her “bucket list” for a long time.
Pallagi’s books, the first two in a series called The Checker Board, follow the adventures of a runaway, Dave
Smith, who learns to survive on an 1880 West Texas cattle ranch. “They are traditional westerns in the manner
of Zane Grey,” Pallagi said. “I love to write, and fiction comes easily to me,” said Pallagi, who uses the pen name Nedler Palaz.
“I started writing westerns in the 1950s when I watched all the awful plots on TV westerns and thought, ‘I can do better than
that.’”
Pallagi said the western setting evokes for her the homeland of her Hungarian ancestors, who came to Newark in
the early 1900s from a tiny town, Tisza Polgar, in northeastern Hungary, where the people were sheepherders and
cattle ranchers.
“Writing about the west has been a lifelong interest,” Pallagi said. “Very few novelists write an old-fashioned
western story, especially one that sweeps over a broad aspect of the growth of Texas and the struggles it took to
protect land and cattle ownership.”
“I feel I was born 100 years too late,” said Pallagi. “I have an affinity with older times, when the
lifestyle and culture were simpler.”
Despite her nostalgic leanings, Pallagi has led an active life, with a 37-year career as a property and casualty
business lines underwriter and an ongoing 40-year membership in POWERtalk International, a non-profit
organization of public speaking clubs. When she won POWERtalk’s International Short Story Writing contest in 2004,
Pallagi decided it was time to publish the manuscripts she had been working on since the 1950s. “This has been my
goal for a long time,” she said.
“These books are full of mystery, suspense, action, history, and a little bit of romance,” said Hebron resident Laura
Beard, who was Pallagi’s proofreader. “I found myself on a roller-coaster of emotions, which made it difficult for
me to put them down, and I’m eager to read what’s next.”
The novels, which return to the lawless period in West Texas following both the Mexican War and later the Civil
War, deal with the struggles around land acquisition and cattle ownership, in which only the fittest survive. The
characters: ranchers, Mexicans and displaced Comanches, are among ranks of villains and good guys, who act out
their roles on stage larger and more poignant with meaning than any of them can conceive.
