Judy Alter
A novelist and author of books for both adults and young readers,
Judy Alter writes most often about women and girls of the American
West. Her most recent nonfiction titles are the nonfiction Extraordinary
Explorers and Adventurers and Great Women of the American
West. Her novel about Etta Place entitled Sundance, Butch,
and Me was published in 2002. Sam Houston is My Hero,
a young-adult novel about the Runaway Scrape during the Texas Revolution,
was published in 2003. Her collection Fool Girl and Other Stories
is forthcoming from Panther Creek Press. Judy's newest book, Sue
Ellen Learns to Dance, is also published by Panther Creek Press:
Sue Ellen Learns to Dance.
In 2005 Alter received the Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Achievement
from Western Writers of America. Alter's novel, Mattie,
about a woman physician on the Nebraska frontier, won a Spur Award
from Western Writers of America as the best western novel of 1987;
Luke and the Van Zandt County War was named the best
juvenile of 1984 by the Texas Institute of Letters. Two short
stories, "Fool Girl" and "Sue Ellen Learns to Dance," won the
Western Heritage (Wrangler) Award from the National Cowboy Hall
of Fame. "Sue Ellen" also won a Spur from WWA. Henrietta King,
a young-adult novel, is a finalist for the Western Writers of
America Spur Award in juvenile nonfiction.
Alter's novels include Libbie, a fictional life of
Elizabeth Bacon Custer; Jessie, a fictional life of Jessie
Benton Fremont; Cherokee Rose, a fictional account of
America's first Wild West show cowgirl; Mattie, about
a woman physician; and A Ballad for Sallie, a novel about
an orphan in nineteenth-century Fort Worth. Her young-adult fiction
includes Callie Shaw-Stableboy, Maggie and a Horse
Named Devildust, Maggie and the Search for Devildust,
Maggie and Devildust-Ridin' High, Katie and the Recluse,
Luke and the Van Zandt County War, and After Pa Was
Shot.
Nonfiction for young readers includes books dealing with such
topics as Wild West Shows, rodeos, mapping the American West,
and the Santa Fe Trail. She is also the author of several biographies
of American presidents, a book on Texas, one on New Mexico, and
one on the Indian Wars.
Alter has been director of TCU Press in Fort Worth, Texas, since
1987. She holds a Ph.D. in English with special interest in the
literature of the American West from TCU, an M.Ed. in English
from Truman State University (Kirksville, MO), and a B.A. from
the University of Chicago. She is a past president of Western
Writers of America and served several years as secretary-treasurer
of the Texas Institute of Letters. In 1989 the Mayor's Commission
on the Status of Women named her one of the Outstanding Women
of Fort Worth, and the Dallas Morning News included her
in its list of one hundred women who have left their mark on Texas.
See a list of Judy's publications.
Read Judy's blog at http://judys-stew.blogspot.com
JUDY ALTER