Author Bio
Joe Nick Patoski is in his fourth decade writing about Texas and Texans. He has authored and co-authored biographies on Selena and Stevie Ray Vaughan, both published by Little, Brown and Company and the coffeetable books Texas Mountains, Texas Coast, and Big Bend National Park all published by the University of Texas Press. He spent 18 years as a staff writer for Texas Monthly and more recently has written for the Texas Observer, National Geographic, No Depression, People magazine, Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine, Field & Stream, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Big Bend Sentinel, Southwest Spirit, American Way, the Austin Chronicle, Harp, and TimeOut New York, and other publications. He also contributed an essay to the photo book Conjunto by John Dyer, also published by University of Texas Press.
In 2003-4, he recorded the oral histories of B.B. King, Clarence Fountain of the Blind Boys of Alabama, Memphis musician and producer Jim Dickinson, Tejano superstar Little Joe Hernandez, and 15 other subjects for the Voice of Civil Rights oral history project, some of which appeared in the book My Soul Looks Back in Wonder by Juan Williams, published by Sterling, and rode on the The Voices of Civil Rights bus tour, a 70 day journey across the nation where personal oral histories on civil rights were collected for the Library of Congress.
His biography of Willie Nelson was published this spring by Little, Brown and Company. An avid swimmer and kayaker, he lives near the village of Wimberley in the Texas Hill Country.