...see, I think it comes across as New Yorkers writing about an alt-universe American Southwest. But I have Feelings about easterners writing about the west. And as easterners writing about the west go, the WTNV crowd irritate me less than many.

(And no, I don't know that I can put my finger on how it would be different if westerners were writing it. But I see it as existing in continuity with a long literary tradition where the surreal things happen on the frontier and the frontier is a long way from where the writers and the presumed-consumers of speculative and genre fiction spend their time.)