Cathy Luchetti

I have published six photographic history books that chronicle the American frontier through the stories of pioneer men, women, children and evangelists through themes of courtship, love, marriage, cooking, and children. Women of the West, Under God’s Spell, Home on the Range, Medicine Women, Men of the West, and Children of West are among the first books to examine history through the voices of unsung frontier settlers as well as through first person accounts by minorities. Book awards include the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award for Literary Excellence, the James Beard Award for Best Writing on American Food History, runner-up for the Willa Cather Award for Non-Fiction from Women Writing the West, and winner of the Los Angeles Times Best Books of 2001. A seventh book, The Hot Flash Cookbook, Chronicle Books, won the Fifth Annual World Cookbook Fair Award, Perigeaux, France.

In Addition

Library Laureate 2005, San Francisco

Reads and Writes

Library of Congress “Books & Beyond” Series lecture

National Archives speaker

Laura Bush’s White House Symposium on Women of the West in the Salute to American Authors Series to promote reading and literacy

The Sacramento Book Collectors Club 63 Anniversary Honoree

Grant recipient, The Book Club of California

Lectures on CSPAN and NPR; books reviewed in The New York Post, Christian Science Monitor, San Francisco Chronicle, Newsday, The New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today and over 300 more.

Also:

The International Cookbook Award, Perigeaux, France,

Consulted and wrote for Hot on the Trail, a Wyler/Rimland production for Ted Turner narrated by Keith Carradine, broadcast nationally on TBS. Consultant and participating historian in Secrets of the Gold Rush, a la carte productions, PBS, and author/ consultant on frontier marriage customs for The Love Chronicles, A&E Channel. The play, Most Blessed by the Motherlode Stage Company was adapted from I Do! Courtship, Love and Marriage in the American West