Writing the West is a podcast for readers who love the West. From CJ Box to Anne Hillerman, we host some of today's top authors of the West. From the stories behind the stories to translating the West into written words, to their favorite characters, TV shows, and beyond, Writing the West gives you the access to the authors and books you love. Writing the West is a publication of Cowboys & Indians Magazine.
Tyler Auffhammer is an Assistant Editor at Cowboys & Indians Magazine, where he contributes to digital engagement efforts and launched the Writing the West podcast, featuring top Western authors. A lifelong reader and lover of westerns, he can be found re-reading tattered Louis L'Amour novels.
Author of the Leaphorn, Chee, and Manuelito series of Native American crime fiction novels, Anne Hillerman inherited both her passion for writing, and her series' characters, from her late father, legendary writer Tony Hillerman.
Beau L'Amour is a writer and entertainment industry jack-of-all-trades. He is the son of best selling novelist Louis L'Amour and has managed his father's literary estate since 1988. Striving to maintain that legacy, he has done editorial work, revised unfinished manuscripts, managed a literary magazine and an audio/radio drama series, done art direction, been a comic book writer and producer and become an expert in marketing. In the years since his father passed away L'Amour has helped sell over 120 million books, nearly 5 million audio programs and placed a number of books of short stories (out of 16 posthumous collections) on the Best Seller lists.
Bryan Burrough is the author or coauthor of eight books, four of them New York Times bestsellers, including the Wall Street classic Barbarians at the Gate and Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth. A longtime correspondent at Vanity Fair and now editor at large at Texas Monthly, he lives in Austin.
C. J. Box is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 31 novels including the Joe Pickett series. He won the Edgar Alan Poe Award for Best Novel (Blue Heaven, 2009) as well as the Anthony Award, Prix Calibre 38 (France), the Maltese Falcon Award (Japan), the Macavity Award, the Gumshoe Award, two Barry Awards, and the 2010 Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Award for fiction. He was recently awarded the 2016 Western Heritage Award for Literature by the National Cowboy Museum as well as the Spur Award for Best Contemporary Novel by the Western Writers of America in 2017. Over twenty million copies of his books have been sold in the U.S. and abroad and they’ve been translated into 27 languages. Two television series have been based on his novels, including BIG SKY on ABC and JOE PICKETT on Paramount+ and Amazon Prime. He was an Executive Producer for both series.
Craig Johnson is the New York Times bestselling author of the
Longmire mysteries, the basis for the hit Netflix original series
Longmire. He is a two time recipient of the Western Writers of
America Spur Award for fiction, multiple Will Rogers Medallion
Awards, and his novella Spirit of Steamboat was the first One
Book Wyoming selection. Craig is the 2025 recipient of the Owen
Wister Award for Lifetime Contributions to Western Literature. He
lives in Ucross, Wyoming, population 26.
George R. Matthews has written on the Olympics, baseball and Zebulon Pike, and is a member of Biographers International Organization and the National Coalition of Independent Scholars. He lives in New Mexico.
Johnny D. Boggs is the highly acclaimed author of more than fifty Westerns, including Return to Red River, West Texas Kill, and the Western Heritage Wrangler Award-winning novel Spark on the Prairie. A twelve-time Spur Award-finalist and eight-time Spur Award-winner, he has received more awards than any other author in the history of the Western Writers of America, including Louis L'Amour. He is a member of the Western Writers Hall of Fame and the 2020 recipient of Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Contributions to Western Literature from the Western Writers of America. Booklist has called him "among the best Western writers at work today" and he has twice received the True West Magazine Best of the West Award. A native of South Carolina and former newspaper journalist, he lives with his family in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and can be found online at JohnnyDBoggs.com.
Laurie L. Dove is a reporter and editor whose work has appeared in numerous publications and garnered several honors for outstanding journalism. She graduated with a master’s degree in Creative Writing and Literature from Harvard University. She is an adjunct professor who currently lives and writes in Kansas. Her debut novel, Mask of the Deer Woman, was published in 2025.