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Dusty Richards
IF THERE WAS A SATURDAY MATINEE, Dusty was there with Hoppy, Roy and Gene.
He went to roundup at seven years-old, sat on a real horse and watched them brand
calves on the Peterson Ranch in Othello, Washington. When his family moved to Arizona
from the Midwest, at age 13, he knew he'd gone to heaven. A horse of his own, ranches
to work on, rodeos to ride in, Dusty's mother worried all his growing up years he'd
turn out to be some "old cowboy bum."
He read every western book on the library shelves. He sat on the stoop of Zane Grey's
cabin on Mrs. Winter's ranch and looked out over the "muggie-own" rim and promised the
writer's ghost his book would join Grey's some day on the book rack.
Since English teachers never read westerns, he made up book reports like "Guns on the
Brazos" by J.P. Jones. The story of a Texas Ranger who saves the town and the girl. Then
he sold them for a dollar to other boys to lazy to read when teenagers were lucky to earn
fifty cents an hour. In fact, book reports kept him and his buddy in gas money to go back
and forth to high school.
After graduating from Arizona State University in 1960, he came to northwest Arkansas,
ranched, auctioneered, announced rodeo, worked 32 years for Tyson Food in management,
anchored TV news and struggled to get a book of his own sold. The three earlier books
on the list were published without his knowledge and only discovered a year ago as even existing.
In 1992, his first novel, Noble's Way was published. In 2003, his novel The Natural won
the Oklahoma Writer's Federation Fiction Book of the Year Award. In 2004, The Abilene
Trail won the same award. Dusty invests a lot of his time helping others who want to
learn how to write by speaking at seminars and conferences all over the United States.
There is no difference in writing any kind of fiction. In Dusty's words, "You simply change
the sets, costumes and dialect."
He serves on the board of Ozark Creative Writers Conference held annually in Eureka Springs,
Arkansas, as well as on the boards of the Ozarks Writers League in Branson, Missouri, and the
Oklahoma Writers Federation. He also serves on the board of his local electric co-op, and of
the Springdale, Arkansas PRCA rodeo. He is a past board member of the Western Writers of America.
In 2004 he was inducted into the Arkansas Writers Hall of Fame.
This year, his 96th book will have been published under his own name and pseudonyms. That does not
count his five dozen plus short stories and hundreds of articles and columns.
Dusty and his wife, Pat, reside next to Beaver Lake east of Springdale, Arkansas, that is
whenever they aren't off at speaking engagements or writing conferences, announcing rodeos
or chuckwagon racing, or researching for western novels. He and his wife have two wonderful
daughters, Ann and Rhonda, two great son in laws, and four super grand kids from ages 12 to 20.
If he can steal time to do it, Dusty likes to fish for trout on the White River in Arkansas.
Feel free to email Dusty at http://www.dustyrichards.com
Work published in Frontier Tales:
When The Jingle Bob Job Was Over
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