James Wade was awarded the 2026 Dobie Paisano Fellow from the University of Texas at Austin. His latest novel, Narrow the Road, won the 2026 Western Heritage Award for Outstanding Novel. James is the youngest novelist to win two Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America, and the recipient of the MPIBA’s prestigious Reading the West Award. His debut novel, All Things Left Wild, was listed as one of the most influential westerns of the 21st century by True West Magazine and included in the Los Angeles Times’s 1,001 Novels: A Library of America. His Southern Gothic mystery, Beasts of the Earth, was named a Best Book of 2022 by both Deep South Magazine and The Southern Review of Books. James is a four-time finalist for the Austin Chronicle’s Best Writer in Austin award, and his non-fiction work has appeared in Texas Highways, Writers’ Digest, and numerous additional publications. James was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2026. He lives and writes in the Texas Hill Country with his wife and children.