Lynn Downey is an award-winning western historian, novelist and short story writer, and her latest works of both history and fiction center around the dude ranch, America's original vacation.
She first got interested in the topic when she was working as the Historian/Archivist for Levi Strauss & Co. in San Francisco. The company made a line of pants and shirts called Dude Ranch Duds in the 1930s and 1940s, and Lynn was intrigued. She was intrigued enough to start collecting dude ranch ephemera, a collection that has grown to over 100 pieces (not that she's obsessed or anything).
Her debut novel, "Dudes Rush In," won the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award and a Will Rogers Medallion Award. She wrote a screenplay based on the novel, which has garnered Finalist, Quarterfinalist, and Honorable Mention awards at the Santa Barbara, Beverly Hills, Las Vegas and Palm Springs film festivals.
The next book in the series, "Dude or Die," was a Finalist for the New-Mexico Arizona Book Award and is currently on the longlist for the Laramie/Chanticleer award.
Lynn's next book will be a memoir of her time tracking down the life and travels of a Boston writer, Frederick Wadsworth Loring, who joined a dangerous expedition around California, Arizona and Nevada in 1871, and died in a stagecoach attack just before his 22nd birthday. He had poetry, journalism, a play and a novel on his resume already and wanted to see the West to perfect his writing. Fred's life intersects with Lynn's in many places.
Lynn writes the blog Tumblereads: A New Twist on the Old West. She lives in Sonoma, California, where she grows Pinot Noir wine grapes in her back yard.
Awards: Will Rogers Medallion Award for Western Fiction; New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for Arizona Historical Fiction; WILLA Literary Award for Scholarly Non-Fiction; Foreword Reviews INDIE award for Biography
Stay up-to-date with all the latest news and information from the Tucson Festival of Books!
