Win Blevins to Receive 2015 Owen Wister Award
Win Blevins is the 2015 recipient of the Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Contributions to Western Literature. The award is given by Western Writers of America as its highest honor and will be presented during the organization’s annual convention in June in Lubbock, Texas.
The author of more than 30 books, including the Spur Award-winning novels Stone Song and So Wild a Dream, Blevins started his writing career as a music and drama reviewer for the Los Angeles Times. He then became the entertainment editor and principal theater and movie critic of the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. His first book, Give Your Heart to the Hawks, was published in 1973 and since then he has made a living as a freelance writer. He has written articles for magazines and essays, and worked for 15 years as an editor at Macmillan Publishing and spent two years as Gaylord Family Visiting Professor of Professional Writing at the University of Oklahoma.
Blevins lives in Bluff, Utah, with his wife, mystery novelist Meredith Blevins, with whom he has written his newest novel, Moonlight Water, released in January by Forge Books.
His historical novels include the Rendezvous Series published by Tor-Forge Books, including So Wild a Dream (2003), Beauty for Ashes (2004), Dancing with the Golden Bear (2005), Heaven Is a Long Way Off (2006), A Long and Winding Road (2007) and Dreams Beneath Your Feet (2008). For the Rivers West series published by Bantam he wrote Powder River (1990), The Snake River (1992) and The High Missouri (1994).
Blevins also created, edited and co-published the series Classics of the Fur Trade, published by Mountain Press Publishing Company. This series included the two-volume The River of the West: The Adventures of Joe Meek by Frances Fuller Victor; Journal of a Mountain Man by James Clyman, Edward Warren by Sir William Drummond Stewart; The Personal Narrative of James O. Pattie by James Ohio Pattie; and The Long Rifle by Steward Edward White.
The Wister Award is a bronze statue of a buffalo created especially for Western Writers of America by artist Robert Duffie. It will be presented June 27.
