J.P.S. Brown

Joseph Paul Summers Brown loves to tell stories, and he has plenty to tell.  A legendary writer, rancher, adventurer, and cattle trader, he was born in Nogales, Arizona, in 1930, and is a fifth-generation cattleman. Joe Brown will bring copies of his books to the Festival and will be sharing many stories from a lifetime of adventure.

Brown grew up on the High Lonesome Ranch in Arizona, graduated from high school in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and earned a journalism degree from Notre Dame University in 1952. He worked as a reporter for three years in Arizona and at the El Paso Herald-Post, and in 1955 was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps, serving until 1958. From high school years and beyond, Brown fought in amateur boxing contests and won several championships.

Returning to ranch life after military duty, he bought cattle and horses in Chihuahua, Sonora, Baja California, Coahuila, and Jalisco. He worked as a cowboy in California, then moved to Navajoa, Sonora, in 1960 to buy cattle for the American rodeo. He rode horse trails throughout the Sierra Madre Occidental from Chinipas, Chihuahua, to Sahuaripa, Sonora.

In Mexico he began to write stories that eventually became his first novel, Jim Kane, in 1960. He wrote several more novels based on his colorful life experiences in ranching, cattle-buying, boxing, and wrangling for the movies. They include Forests of the Night, Dial, 1974, now considered a classic; Steeldust, Walker, 1986; Keep the Devil Waiting, Bantam, 1992; The Arizona Saga (four books) Bantam and Doubleday,1989-1994; The Cinnamon Colt, Doubleday, 1996; The World in Pancho's Eye, UNM Press, October 2007; and Wolves At Our Door, UNM Press April, 2008.

Brown was awarded the Will James Society's Big Enough Award for literary achievement in the cowboy tradition, 1999, and won Arizona Historical Society's Lawrence Clark Powell Award for lifetime achievement in Southwestern letters, 2003.