Welcome to Jane Little Botkin
Nationally recognized author Jane Little Botkin scours the West for firsthand sources in family, library, and museum collections, melding personal narratives of American families with compelling stories of western women, labor radicals, miners, lawmen, and outlaws in settings rich with a history that transitions into the New West. Her works are respected for their unique subjects, detail, depth, honesty, and narrative style.
Winner of two Western Writers of America (WWA) prestigious Spur Awards and two Women Writing the West's (WWW) Willa Literary Awards; two Caroline Bancroft History Prize Awards from the Denver Public Library; the Barbara Sudler Award for best book written on the West by a Woman from History Colorado; the Texas Nonfiction Book Award and Colorado Humanities Book Award; Oklahoma Book Award, Sarton Book Book Award, and High Plains Book Award finalists; Independent Publisher Book Award; two Foreword Indies Book Awards; and the WWW's Downing Literary Award for best short nonfiction.
Welcome to Jane Little Botkin
Nationally recognized author Jane Little Botkin scours the West for firsthand sources in family, library, and museum collections, melding personal narratives of American families with compelling stories of western women, labor radicals, miners, lawmen, and outlaws in settings rich with a history that transitions into the New West. Her works are respected for their unique subjects, detail, depth, honesty, and narrative style.
Winner of two Western Writers of America (WWA) prestigious Spur Awards and two Women Writing the West's (WWW) Willa Literary Awards; two Caroline Bancroft History Prize Awards from the Denver Public Library; the Barbara Sudler Award for best book written on the West by a Woman from History Colorado; the Texas Nonfiction Book Award; the Independent Publisher Book Award; two Foreword Indies Book Awards; Colorado Humanities Book Award; Oklahoma Book Award, Sarton Book Book Award, and High Plains Book Award finalists; and the WWW's Downing Journalism Award.
I am honored to announce
The Breath of a Buffalo, A Biography of Mary Ann Goodnight
will release in early 2027 from the University of Oklahoma Press.
My best work yet!
Pre-orders will be available in late 2026!
Please visit Events on the Menu to see what's coming up in 2026.
Jane Little Botkin talks about writing and her books
Current Conversations
Writing an Honest Biography or Autobiography
At the WWA conference in Amarillo in 1983, famous western biographer J. Evetts Haley recalled reading Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains when he was a boy. The author, Captain William F. Drannan, claimed to be an adopted son of Kit Carson. Stories of trapping beaver, hunting buffalo, and chasing wild horses…
Slow Living in the White Mountain Wilderness
Eight years ago, my husband and I decided to purchase a recreational home, i.e., a cabin, in Ruidoso, New Mexico, almost ten hours from our primary home in Dripping Springs, Texas. We first met on Sierra Blanca’s ski slopes in 1976, so the location had a romantic appeal for our newly retired lives. Besides, our…
A Song, a Movie, and a City
When Marty Robbins first made a West Texas town famous with his hit song “El Paso,” he did more than just earn a No. 1 country single for the original version, as heard on the 1959 album Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs. He changed the face of a city struggling to become consequential within the Lone…