Steve Hockensmith’s mystery-solving cowboys, Big Red and Old Red Amlingmeyer, first appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and later starred in Hockensmith’s debut novel, Holmes on the Range, which was nominated for the Edgar, Dilys, Shamus, and Anthony Awards. Three sequels (On the Wrong Track, The Black Dove, and The Crack in the Lens) followed, and a fifth book in the series is in the works. Hockensmith’s latest novel is Dawn of the Dreadfuls, a prequel to the horror/romance “mash-up” Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
William W. Johnstone is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over 125 books published over the last 25 years, with more than 10,000,000 copies in print. J. A. Johnstone is the frequent collaborator of his uncle, Bill Johnstone, and is also the author of The Loner series.
Margaret Coel is the New York Times bestselling author of the Wind River mystery series set among the Arapahos in Wyoming. She is widely considered the most accomplished heir to Tony Hillerman’s legacy. The fourteenth novel in her series, The Silent Spring, was published in September 2009, and her stand-alone novel, Blood Memory, appeared in 2008. Margaret is a recipient of the Willa [Cather] Award for best novel on the West. She is also the author of four non-fiction books on the West. A fourth-generation Coloradan, Margaret lives in Boulder with her husband, George.
Johnny D. Boggs has four Spur Awards from Western Writers of America, a Western Heritage Wrangler Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, and has been called “among the best western writers at work today” by Booklist magazine. The author of more than twenty-five Western novels, three nonfiction books, and scores of articles for magazines such as True West, Wild West and Persimmon Hill, Boggs has covered a wide array of subjects in fiction and nonfiction. Recent novels include Northfield, Camp Ford, and Walk Proud, Stand Tall. A native of South Carolina and former newspaper journalist in Texas, Boggs lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with his wife and son. His website is www.johnnydboggs.com.
Bill Brooks has written more than twenty novels dealing with the American West, including The Stone Garden: The Epic Life of Billy the Kid and many others. He works as a full-time writer and lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Appalachia, the ancestral home of his father’s people. He lived and wrote in Arizona for six years, which gave him a chance to explore the West and its history. He hopes that someday the “Western” will make a comeback and that it will be recognized for the true literary form that it is.
Candy Moulton has written a dozen Western history books including Roadside History of Wyoming and the Spur-winning biography Chief Joseph: Guardian of the People. As a reporter for the Casper Star-Tribune, she has written about many Wyoming crimes, including the reinvestigation of the Willie Nickell killing. She writes regularly for a number of magazines and newspapers, and edits the Roundup Magazine for Western Writers of America. She makes her home near Encampment, Wyoming.
Louis L’Amour (1908–1988) was the most successful western writer of all time, selling fifteen to twenty thousand books a day at the height of his popularity. He wrote the kind of action fiction beloved by so many generations of Americans, with strong heroes, evil villains, proud, energetic heroines, and all of the excitement and danger that the West represented. His novels include such masterpieces as Hondo, Shalako, Down the Long Hills, The Cherokee Trail, and Last of the Breed. His most famous series was the Sacketts saga, later made into several excellent television movies.
Sandy Whiting resides along a Kansas section of the Chisholm Trail. Although no cattle currently tread outside the door, an occasional horse and rider will trek up the paved street, and there are buffalo grazing in a pen about a mile and a half away. Sandy’s first work of fiction appeared in the Louis L’Amour Western Magazine. That story won the Spur Award for best short fiction. In addition, she’s published several fiction stories as well as nonfiction articles. She’s also reviewed music CDs fresh out of the chute and headed to the public’s ears.
Larry D. Sweazy (www.larrydsweazy.com) won the WWA Spur award for Best Short Fiction in 2005, and was nominated for a Derringer award in 2007. His other short stories have appeared in, or will appear in, The Adventure of the Missing Detective: And 25 of the Year’s Finest Crime and Mystery Stories!, Boy’s Life, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Amazon Shorts, and other publications. He is also author of the Josiah Wolfe, Texas Ranger series (Berkley). Larry owns WordWise Publishing Services, LLC, and as a freelance indexer, he has written over five hundred back-of-the-book indexes for publishers such as Cisco Press, Addison-Wesley, O’Reilly, and Thomson-Gale. He lives in Noblesville, Indiana, with his wife, Rose, two dogs, and a cat.
Lori Van Pelt won the Western Writers of America Spur Award for Best Short Fiction in 2006 for the lead tale in her short story collection, Pecker’s Revenge and Other Stories from the Frontier’s Edge (University of New Mexico Press, 2005). Her biography, Amelia Earhart: The Sky’s No Limit (Forge, American Heroes Series, 2005), was one of three in the nation named to the New York Public Library’s “Best Books for the Teen Age 2006” list. The author of the Wyoming-based nonfiction Dreamers and Schemers series published by High Plains Press, her award-winning nonfiction articles have appeared in a variety of publications ranging from the WREN (Wyoming Rural Electric News) magazine to the WOLA (Western Outlaw and Lawman Association) Journal. Lori lives with her husband, Eugene Walck, Jr., on his ranch near Saratoga, Wyoming. She recently completed her second collection of western short fiction.
Deborah Morgan writes in both the western and mystery genres. Her first short fiction appeared in Louis L’Amour Western Magazine. Raised on a ranch in Oklahoma, she was named Roundup Club Rodeo Queen in her hometown when she was fifteen. Morgan was managing editor of two national treasure hunting magazines, and later of a biweekly newspaper in southeast Kansas before moving to Michigan. She admits that something western usually finds its way into her antique-lover’s mystery novel series. A former Western Writers of America Spur Awards Chair, she’s currently writing her first historical western novel.
Former Western Writers of America president Loren D. Estleman has written more than sixty novels and a couple of hundred short stories, including the U.S. Deputy Marshal Page Murdock series, many stand-alone historical westerns, and the Detroit Detective Amos Walker mysteries. Estleman has been nominated for the National Book Award and the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award. He is the recipient of sixteen national writing awards, including five Spurs and two Stirrups from the WWA, three Western Heritage Awards from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, and four Shamus Awards from the Private Eye Writers of America.
Jeff Mariotte is the award-winning author of more than thirty novels, most set in the contemporary West, including River Runs Red, Missing White Girl (both as Jeffrey J. Mariotte), The Slab, and the teen horror quartet Witch Season. He lives in southern Arizona.
Born in Andrews County, Texas, Elmer Kelton graduated from the University of Texas in 1948. He has won seven Spur Awards and three Western Heritage Awards, and his novels have included such critically acclaimed work as The Time It Never Rained, The Man Who Rode Midnight, and Way of the Coyote. His memoir, Sandhills Boy, was published in 2007.
James “Jim” Fischer is an Ohio native and has been around horses most of his life. Both of Jim’s grandfathers made their living with horses, one as a farmer, and the other as a teamster. Jim is an associate member of the Western Writers of America and co-author of the book Custer’s Horses, Wolfe Publishing, 2001. Jim has had articles published in Buckskin Report and Cowboy Magazine, and his story “Snow Angels” is one of the stories in the collection Tales from Cowboy Country, Range Writer, Inc., 2005. Jim belongs to The National Bit, Spur & Saddle Collectors Association, the Single Action Shooting Society, the Custer Battlefield Historical & Museum Association, and is a Life Member of the National Rifle Association. Jim and his wife Candy live in Vermilion, Ohio, on the south shore of Lake Erie.