W.K. Stratton |
writer |
W. K. (KIP) STRATTON is a native of the Southwest. His journalism has appeared in GQ, Sports Illustrated, Outside, and Southern Magazine. He lives near Austin, Texas.
He worked for newspapers for ten years, working on everything from weeklies to semi-weeklies to small-town dailies to medium market dailies to a significant metropolitan newspaper. At some point along the way, he started writing for magazines. The very first magazine he wrote for was one at the very top of the heap, Sports Illustrated.
"I did everything the wrong way. I wrote the article unsolicited and mailed it in 'over the transom.' A week and a half later, I got a call from a guy at SI who said, with a stout Brooklyn accent, 'We need some pics to run with this article about this cowboy guy you wrote. Do you have any ideas where we can find photos?' That's how I first learned that I'd sold my first magazine piece."
He continued to write magazine pieces whenever he had a chance and developed a freelance relationship with the Dallas Morning News, where he has been contributing criticism, columns, and occasional features for the last 13 years.
Chasing the Rodeo is his third book. In his second book, Splendor in the Short Grass, he and award-winning writer Jan Reid collected and arranged works from the infamous journalist, Grover Lewis.
His first book, Backyard Brawl, describes the football rivalry between the University of Texas and Texas A&M. On another level, however, it is a sense of place book about Texas and all the conflicting and non-conflicting cultural values you can find at each school.