Dude or Die

Lynn Downey is a native Californian and self-described dudine. She grew up around her uncle's horses and her rodeo cowboy cousins in the San Francisco Bay Area, but instead of spending her childhood on horseback, she ended up as a historian and novelist of the West.She read about the culture of dude ranching while working as the company Historian for Levi Strauss & Co., and spent her first dude ranch vacation in Wickenburg, Arizona. She became fascinated with this unique American institution and made it the setting for her award-winning debut novel, Dudes Rush In, the first book in her H Double Bar Dude Ranch series. Lynn has written about Western history for over thirty years, and her books include American Dude Ranch: A Touch of the Cowboy and the Thrill of the West; Levi Strauss: The Man Who Gave Blue Jeans to the World; Arequipa Sanatorium: Life in California's Lung Resort for Women; Arizona's Vulture Mine and Vulture City; Wickenburg: Images of America; and A Short History of Sonoma. Her books have won many accolades: the Will Rogers Medallion Award, New Mexico-Arizona Book Award, the WILLA award from Women Writing the West, and the INDIE award from Foreword Reviews.She shares her home in Sonoma, California with a collection of very entertaining cats and occasionally makes wine from the Pinot Noir vineyard in her backyard.You can find Lynn on Instagram at lynn.downey.historian. Her website is at lynndowney.com, and she also writes the blog Tumblereads: A New Twist on the Old West: tumblereadsblog.