Caleb Pirtle

Caleb Pirtle III is the author of more than fifty-five books. He is a graduate of The University of Texas in Austin with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. He served as sports editor for The Daily Texan and became the first student at the university to win the National William Randolph Hearst Award for feature writing.

He began his career in the newspaper business, working with the Plainview Daily Herald and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, winning both the Texas Associated Press and Headliner’s Awards.

When Governor John Connally began the Texas Tourist Development Agency, he named Pirtle as his chief of media relations, which introduced Pirtle to the world of travel. He left Texas to become the travel editor of Southern Living Magazine for a decade, capturing the Discover America Award three times. At Southern Living, he wrote three books – The Unending Season, XIT: The American Cowboy, and The Grandest Day, all Southeastern Library Association award winners. He wrote two novels for Berkeley based on the Gambler series: Dead Man’s Hand and Jokers Are Wild.

Pirtle served as editorial director for Dockery House Publishing in Dallas for twenty-five years, developing and producing books and magazines for the corporate and retail marketplace.

He has written three teleplays: Gambler V: Playing for Keeps, a mini-series for CBS television, Wildcat: The Story of Sarah Delaney and the Doodlebug Man, for a CBS made-for-television movie, and The Texas Rangers, a TV movie for John Milius and TNT television.

Pirtle’s novels include: Place of Skulls, Last Deadly Lie, Cloverleaf, and Friday Night Heat. His non-fiction books include: Gamble in the Devil’s Chalk, Trail of Broken Promises, This Great Land, Other Voices, Other Towns, Tennessee Through the Looking Glass, Georgia Through the Looking Glass, The dark Side of the Rainbow, Texas: Its Lore and Its Lure, The Texas Outback, Deep Roots, Texas: The Rare Breed, Texas: Legacy of a Proud Land, Echoes from Forgotten Streets, Visions of Forgotten Streets, Life on Kilgore’s Unforgettable Streets, The Lonely Sentinel, The Glory Days, Place of Miracles, Engineering the World, Texas Cooking, and The Official, Old-Fashioned, Down-Home, Home-Grown Texas Cookbook.

Pirtle lives in Hideaway, Texas, with his wife, Linda.