Velda Brotherton enjoyed a long and accomplished career in historical writing, both fiction and nonfiction. Her love of the West and its stories drove the publication of more than twenty-five books across three decades.

Before turning to fiction, she worked as a journalist in Northwest Arkansas, a role that shaped her sharp eye for detail and deep respect for real places and real people. In 1988, she co-founded the Northwest Arkansas Writers Workshop with her friend and writing partner, the legendary Dusty Richards. The group became a cornerstone for regional writers, and Velda spent decades mentoring, teaching, and developing new talent.

Her own writing career crossed genres and publishers. She built early success as a New York–published romance author, then expanded into romantic suspense, upmarket fiction, hard-edged Westerns, and regional nonfiction that reflected her reporter’s instincts. No matter the category, her work carried the same trademarks: grit, heart, and a devotion to the history of the American West.

Velda passed away in 2023, leaving behind a diverse body of work, a loyal readership, and generations of writers whose careers she shaped. Her influence endures in the stories she told and the voices she helped bring into the world.

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 too 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 in 2011 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.”

Dusty’s website: dustyrichards.com
Interview on Youtube: http://youtu.be/n1p4-B6fvjE?hd=1