Bio
Preston Lewis is the Spur Award-winning author of 44 fiction and nonfiction books on the Old West as well as numerous articles, short stories and book reviews on the American frontier. In 2021 Lewis was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters for his literary accomplishments.
His Blood of Texas, written under his Will Camp pseudonym on the Texas Revolution, received Western Writers of America’s Spur Award for best western novel. His True West article “Bluster’s Last Stand” also won a Spur Award
Lewis created the well-received Memoirs of H.H. Lomax, a comic western series, beginning with The Demise of Billy the Kid. The second and third books in the series—The Redemption of Jesse James and Mix-Up at the O.K. Corral—were both Spur Finalists from Western Writers of America. Bluster’s Last Stand and First Herd to Abilene, the fourth and fifth books in the Lomax series, each earned Gold Will Rogers Medallion Awards (WRMA) for written western humor while the sixth book in the series, North to Alaska, received a WRMA Silver Medallion.
His western caper, The Fleecing of Fort Griffin, won an Elmer Kelton Award from the West Texas Historical Association (WTHA) for best creative work on West Texas.
Lewis's short works have appeared in publications as varied as Louis L’Amour Western Magazine and Dallas Morning News. Two of his short stories published in Five Star anthologies received WRMA Gold Medallions. Lewis’s middle reader novels They Call Me Old Blue and Blanca is My Name also won Elmer Kelton Awards from WTHA. His publishers have included Bantam, HarperCollins, Pinnacle, Eakin Press, Wild Horse Press and Wolfpack Publishing.
A native West Texan, Lewis began his professional career working for Texas newspapers in Waco, Abilene, Orange and Lubbock before moving into higher education media relations at Texas Tech University and later Angelo State University, where he retired in 2014.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Baylor University and a master’s degree in journalism from Ohio State University, where he was a Kiplinger Fellow of Public Affairs Reporting. He earned a second master’s degree in history from Angelo State University.
Lewis is a past president of WWA and WTHA, which named him a fellow in 2016. He has also served on the boards of the Ranching Heritage Association and the Book Club of Texas. He is a longstanding member of the Authors Guild and an associate member of the Dramatists Guild of America.
He and his wife Harriet live in San Angelo, Texas.