Winfred Blevins
Win Blevins (born October 21, 1938) is an American author of fiction and non-fiction. He has written many books about the western mountain trappers, and is known for his "mastery of western lore." His notable works include "Stone Song", "So Wild a Dream", and "Dictionary of the American West". According to WorldCat, the "Dictionary of the American West" is held in 728 libraries. Blevins has won numerous awards, including being named winner of the Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Achievement in writing literature of the West, being selected for the Western Writers Hall of Fame, being twice  named 'Writer of the Year' by Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers, and winning two Spur Awards for Novel of the West. Early life and education. Blevins, of Cherokee, Welsh-Irish, and African-American descent, is a native of Little Rock, Arkansas. After attending school in St. Louis, Missouri, he moved to New York, where he received a master's degree from Columbia University, graduating with honors, and continued to California, where he was graduated from the Music Conservatory of the University of Southern California. Journalism and Writing Career. Win 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 Hearst newspaper in Los Angeles, the Herald Examiner. His first book was published in 1973 and since then he has made a living as a free-lance writer. He has written articles for magazines, essays, published forty books, one a dictionary, several travel guides to the West, and the rest novels, including fantasy, historical fiction and modern works of the West such as his contemporaries Rudolfo Anaya, John Nichols, Scott Momaday, Max Evans and Barbara Kingsolver write. For fifteen years he  was an editor at Macmillan Publishing. From 2010 - 2012, Win spent two years as Gaylord Family Visitor Professor of Professional Writing at the University of Oklahoma. Screenplays. He has also written thirteen screenplays, including Atlas Shrugged for Al Ruddy; several for Paramount Pictures; The King of Paris with Dale Wasserman for CBS; The Real Dracula with Dale Wasserman (for Telly Savalas), CBS; Spring in Czechoslovakia for David Picker; John Milius's A-Team; Oonadaga for NBC; The Last Free Man for Fred Read, and six others. (In 1974 David Picker announced he would produce Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail  directed by John Milius and written by Winfred Blevins, about Theodore Roosevelt.) Books. Most of Win Blevins' books were originally published as hardbacks, and were subsequently made available as mass-market paperbacks, trade paperbacks, book club editions, foreign editions, audio books, and e-books. Almost all are still in print. As General Editor. Blevins also created, edited, and co-published the series "Classics of the Fur Trade". Pseudonyms. Win has published two novels and an article in True West Magazine under the pen name, Caleb Fox.