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.
I am honored to announce
The Breath of a Buffalo, The Life of Mary Ann Goodnight
will release in early 2027 from the University of Oklahoma Press.
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
Who’s Butch Cassidy? For Whom Do We Authors Write?
Here I am, my brain processing facts, connections, and others’ analyses for two different books. I can’t believe I started writing at such a late period in my life, but it is what it is, and I have to be hyper-vigilant about my interpretations and analyses, and even word choices. Sometimes I type a word…
The Dude Was Born, and the Western Rockies Have Never Been the Same
On my way home from Lander, Wyoming, after a horrible start, so bad that I questioned the wisdom in flying out last week. My Southwest Airlines flight took off an hour and half late because someone got the emergency exit door stuck. My connection in Denver was a charter flight to Riverton, WY. Instructions were…
The Best Part of a Story Is When It Changes
My mom died. It is a strange feeling being an orphan at my age. I am uncomfortable with the void I feel. I talked to her every day for the last twenty-three years. She had been diagnosed with lung cancer in January. Four months later, gone. One of my best fans, gone. Of course, I…