About Me
As noted: Judy Alter sadly passed away on July 13th, 2024. This was written before then.
Years ago when I was with TCU Press, I used to talk about wearing two hats in the publishing world—as a publisher and an author. Now my two hats are different—I seem to be dividing my time between the ever-exciting mystery world and the challenging history of women in the American West. I have just finished the fourth Irene in Chicago Culinary Mystery, Irene Deep in Texas Trouble, and have a glimmer of an idea for the next, probably to be titled Missing Irene. But I also have a contract with an academic press for a book on Helen Corbitt, doyenne of food service at Neiman Marcus who was the single force who revitalized Texas cooking. I want to look at the way she fits into the sweeping changes in American food culture from the fifties to the present. Tentative title: Get Back in the Kitchen!
I’ve been a writer since I was ten or twelve and distinctly remember submitting a story to Seventeen magazine when I was about that age. But my first book, After Pa Was Shot, a young-adult novel, was published in 1978. I’ve written fiction and nonfiction for young adults, adults, and even second graders. Give me a topic and I’ll write about it, but my focus for years was women of the American West, with novels about Jessie Benton Frémont, Elizabeth Bacon (Mrs. George Armstrong) Custer, Lucille Mulhall, the first woman roper, and Etta Place and the Sundance Kid.
After almost thirty years with a small academic press, twenty of them as director, I retired and turned my attention to writing mysteries. Over the years I had read so many of them, I was just sure I could write one. I told myself I’d be content if I could just have one mystery in print. Now there are eight in the Kelly O’Connell Mystery series, three in the Blue Plate Mystery Series, two in the Oak Grove Mysteries, and four in the Irene in Chicago Culinary Mysteries.
In the midst of writing mysteries, six years ago, I wrote The Gilded Cage, a history-based story set in Chicago, the city of my youth, in the last half of the nineteenth century. Following the life of Mrs. Potter Palmer (Bertha Honoré Palmer) it also chronicles the Great Fire, the Civil War years with a POW camp in the city, the labor troubles that erupted in a series of strikes and riots and the notable Haymarket Riot, and the Columbian Exposition. Potter Palmer, one of the most influential city fathers, built the Palmer House, an elegant hotel once again open to the public after closing during the pandemic. Two nonfiction titles about women in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries followed with publication of The Second Battle of the Alamo and The Most Land, the Best Cattle: the Waggoners of Texas.
I am a past president of Western Writers of America and have been inducted into their Literary Hall of Fame. I have had awards from the National Cowboy Museum and Hall of Fame, the Texas Institute of Letters, and Western Writers of America, Inc., including their Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Achievement and induction into the WWA Hall of Fame. I belong to Sisters in Crime, the Guppies subgroup of Sisters in Crime, the Texas Institute of Letters, Women Writing the West. The Fort Worth Public Library elected me to their Texas Literary Hall of Fame.
I am also passionate about cooking. I have always loved to experiment on guests, entertain, and explore new tastes, new techniques. In the last few years, however, I’ve found myself living in a tiny house with a tiny kitchen and no stove, only a hot plate and a toaster oven. But I still cook family meals, host happy hours, and have occasional dinner guests. You can read about my cottage living and share my favorite new recipes in my newest cookbook, Gourmet on a Hot Plate: Tiny Kitchen Tips and Recipes. And check out my food blog: Gourmet on a Hot Plate. And please do check out my other cookbooks— Cooking My Way through Life with Kids and Books and Texas is Chili Country.
There’s a third major element to my life besides writing and cooking. I am the proud mother of four and grandmother of seven. All of them, thank goodness, live in Texas, but only one in Fort Worth—one daughter, one son-in-law, one grandchild. The grandchildren used to love to stay at Camp Juju, the guest apartment attached to my garage. But now I’ve had the entire structure remodeled into a 600-square foot cottage that is my living space. I have an office area and a living-room area, a small but upscale bath, a huge walk-in closet, a small bedroom, and that tiny cooking area. My new home is called simply “The Cottage.” My local family has moved into the main house, and we enjoy being close but not too close.
When there are no kids or grandkids here, I am content in my cottage, with my dog Sophie, and a wonderful patio and view of the deck and yard. I am blessed with a bevy of friends, caring children, and plenty of writing to do. Keep up with me at my blogs, Judy’s Stew or Gourmet on a Hot Plate—or email me at .
—Judy
Last updated: April 2023
Ta-dah!
