Mama left our Oklahoma farm in 1955. A very caring teacher enrolled my dog, Shorty in school to comfort me. My source of love and security became books and dogs. I sat every afternoon on the steps of that one-room schoolhouse and read to Shorty.
Four decades later, a dog named Jake saved me from a life-threatening ATV accident. That led to my first memoir, Angels in Disguise and later to The Amazing Grace of Dogs. Both true stories about how love from dedicated canine companions gave me the strength to survive family tragedy and the unmerited divine assistance (grace) to become an Award-Winning Author.
I sold my first article (a dog story) in 1973 to a magazine called The National Humane Review. Some of my later magazine credits include: McCall’s, Family Circle, Ladies’ Home Journal, Guideposts, and Highlights for Children.
I self-published my first book, Angels in Disguise / A True Story, in 1995, back in the day when you paid a printer, books were delivered and you proceeded to distribute, without the aid of the internet. It won a Writer’s Digest Award for Life Stories, was a Literary Guild Book Club Selection, was featured in People Magazine, was a Colorado Blue Spruce Nominee and won a Western Heritage Wrangler Award.
Other awards include: A Top Hand Award 2001 for my young adult novel, Reaching for the Reins, a 2013 Colorado Authors’ League Award for Feature Article of the Year. I was a finalist in the Colorado Authors League Awards for my book, The Boys from the Bushes, a creative nonfiction book on early horse racing in Oklahoma. I was a contributor to the women’s anthology, Crazy Woman Creek (Houghton Mifflin 2004.)
In 2001, I rode my donkey across the state from Blue Mountain to Holyoke, CO to promote nonviolence in the schools. That memoir was published by High Plains Press and later became a finalist in the 2015 CAL Awards.
In 2024, my novel, Autumn of the Big Snow, was a finalist in the Colorado Book Awards. My article, published in Guideposts “The Joy of Christmas” magazine, was a 2025 essay award finalist in the CAL Awards.
I’ve lived in northwest Colorado near the Utah border, for 36 years. My life today, at 77, still evolves around daily writing and hiking with my two dogs in the shadow of my beloved Blue Mountains. I am still selling articles and currently working on a book of humorous Oklahoma/Colorado true stories. Visit www.loudean.com