C.M. West is the pseudonym for co-authors Carol Elkovich and Mark Butler.

Published short stories feature character, artist/sleuth Tru James. As visual artists, our writing draws upon our collective experience to write our dark-hearted stories set in the eccentric art subcultures in the San Francisco Bay Area.  After telling each other stories to keep each other awake on long road trips, we finally decided to begin writing them  down. We are working on publishing our first novel, fingers crossed.