Preston Lewis is the award-winning author of sixty novels and nonfiction works. His honors include three Spur Awards from Western Writers of America and eleven Will Rogers Medallion Awards—seven gold, two silver, and two bronze—for traditional westerns, western humor, nonfiction articles, short stories, and juvenile nonfiction.
In 2021, Lewis was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters for his literary accomplishments, and in 2025 he was named recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Will Rogers Medallion Awards for his contributions to the literature of the American West. He is a past president of the Western Writers of America, the West Texas Historical Association—which named him a Fellow in 2016—and the Tom Green County Historical Society. The West Texas Historical Association has also honored him with three Elmer Kelton Awards for best creative work on West Texas.
His nonfiction work Pintsized Pioneers: Taming the Frontier, One Chore at a Time, co-authored with his wife Harriet Kocher Lewis, received a Spur Award, a Will Rogers Gold Medallion, and a Jean Flynn Honor Award from the Texas Institute of Letters for juvenile nonfiction in 2025.
Since 1981, his books have been published by national, regional, and independent presses. In 2021, he and his wife founded Bariso Press, which has since produced a dozen fiction and nonfiction works, including Betting on Horses: Racing as an Economic Development Tool in Frontier West Texas, 1886–1896, Cotton-Picking Folks: Eulogy for a Texas Depression Era Farm Family, and To War and Back: The World War II Journey of Two West Texas Farm Boys. His latest novel, Too Much the Lion: A Novel of the Battle of Franklin, was published by Bariso Press in 2025.
Known for his research into little-known aspects of the American West, Lewis is also an authority on cats in frontier history. Bariso Press has published two of his works on the topic: Cat Tales of the Old West: Poems, Puns & Perspectives on Frontier Felines and More Cat Tales of the Old West: Triumphs, Trials & Trivia of Frontier Felines.
Lewis spent much of his professional career in higher education administration, working in communications and marketing at Texas Tech University and the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. He retired in 2014 from Angelo State University, where he served as Director of Communications and Marketing for fifteen years.
He holds a bachelor’s degree from Baylor University and a master’s degree from Ohio State University, both in journalism, as well as a second master’s in history from Angelo State University. He and Harriet reside in San Angelo, Texas.
