Master western writer Elmer Kelton will be a special guest at the 2008 Lone Pine Film Festival. He will lead western fans in our celebration of the “New Writers of the Purple Sage,” one of the themes of this year’s Festival.

Without the writers there would be no western films. The new writers are bringing great novels and short stories to the enthusiast with more energy and talent than ever before. Elmer Kelton leads the way.

He is the author of more than fifty novels. While his first novels fell solidly into the western cowboy genre, his later works have been acknowledged by critics to be serious literary works while still bringing great enjoyment and entertainment to the reader.

He is a seven time Spur Award winner, acknowledged by his peers to be one of the all time greats. He has recently published a memoir called Sandhills Boy: The Winding Trail of a Texas Writer as well as two well-received books in the past year. His latest is called Many of River. Texas Governor Rick Perry has called Kelton “…truly a Texas legend.” He has also been republishing his Sons of Texas trilogy and has published the Texas Rangers series.

Though originally considered a "Western" writer, his work is beginning to be viewed as more universal. "I believe that his book The Time It Never Rained is one of the dozen or so best novels written by an American in this century," wrote critic Jon Tuska in his book The American West in Fiction. His best known and most critically acclaimed works -- in addition to The Time It Never Rained -- are The Day the Cowboys Quit, The Wolf and the Buffalo and The Good Ole Boys. The last book was turned into a TNT movie starring Tommy Lee Jones.

The Publishers Weekly wrote, “Seven-time Spur Award winner Elmer Kelton has always been a masterful Western storyteller of tales rich with historical detail, vivid characters and sharply defined plots.” Booklist stated (of the Kelton novel Texas Showdown,) “Kelton’s writing is absolutely authentic, and he is a master of spinning that wildly expressive species of dusty idiom that makes good Western writing so gratifying. Add to that some stern, if flexible morality, and tight plotting full of tense, finger-twitching action, and you have some outstanding Western fare.”

Mr. Kelton will appear Saturday morning on a Festival Panel entitled “New Writers of the Purple Sage.” He will also appear in a one-on-one question and answer session at the Museum and then sign his books for you. All events will be free with a Festival Souvenir button this year. It will undoubtedly be a new and different highlight for western fans as well as movie buffs at this year’s Festival.