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John D. Nesbitt

John D. Nesbitt

John D. Nesbitt bases his writing on his familiarity with the people, landscape, and animals he has come to know in the American West. He has pursued the western way of life since he first wore a black Stetson in his childhood. For the past thirty-some years John has lived in the plains country of eastern Wyoming, where he enjoys camping, hiking, horseback riding, and hunting.

As an author of more than forty books, Nesbitt also dedicates a great deal of time to reading, writing, and language study. Nesbitt writes contemporary, retro, mystery, and traditional western fiction, as well as nonfiction, poetry, and song lyrics.

His work is most often praised for its characterization, its sense of place, its prose style, and its blend of both popular and literary styles.

Readers enjoy his work because he writes about everyday people who meet challenges and solve problems in realistic ways.

John has won wide recognition for his work, including:

  • Two awards from the Wyoming State Historical Society (for fiction.)
  • Two awards from Wyoming Writers for encouragement of other writers and service to the organization
  • Two Wyoming Arts Council literary fellowships (one for fiction, one for non- fiction)
  • four Will Rogers Medallion Awards (for Thorns on the Rose, a poetry collection, Good Water, young adult fiction, and Dark Prairie and Death in Cantera, frontier mystery novels),
  • a Western Writers of America Spur finalist award for his novel Raven Springs, and the
  • Spur award  for his short story “At the End of the Orchard”
  • Spur Awards for his novels Trouble at the Redstone and Stranger in Thunder Basin.