Jan Reid |
| HOME | BOOKS | BIO | REVIEWS | CONTACTS | LINKS |
Jan Reid has been a senior writer at Texas Monthly for three decades and has contributed to Esquire, GQ, Slate, Men's Journal, Men's Health, and the New York Times.
An early article about Texas music spawned his first book, The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock, which he updated for its thirtieth anniversary in 2004.
Among his ten books are a well-reviewed novel, Deerinwater, that won a Dobie-Paisano Fellowship; a collection of his magazine pieces, Close Calls, that was a finalist for a Texas Institute of Letters book of the year award; Rio Grande, a compilation of choice writing and photography on the storied border stream; and The Bullet Meant for Me, a reflection on marriage, friendship, boxing, and physical and emotional recovery from a deadly shooting in Mexico.
With Lou Dubose, in The Hammer Comes Down, Reid documented the political rise and fall of Congressman Tom DeLay. With W.K. Stratton, he edited Splendor in the Short Grass, the collected work of the pioneering magazine writer Grover Lewis. Reid's latest book, in 2006, recounts the drama and recording of the album Layla and Other Assorted Long Songs, by Eric Clapton and the star-crossed band Derek and the Dominos.
He is writing Texas Tornado, a biography of the multi-faceted singer Doug Sahm. Nearing completion is a historical novel driven by imagined lives of the Comanche chief Quanah Parker, the black cowboy Bose Ikard, Billy the Kid, and women they loved. Segments of the book previously appeared in Texas Short Stories.
Reid's work has also been anthologized in Best American Sportswriting, Texas Monthly on Texas Women, and The Slate Diaries.
He lives in Austin with his wife, Dorothy Browne.