Faculty Profile for Steven Davis

Biography Section

Biography and Education

Steven L. Davis is the Literary Curator at The Wittliff Collections and is the author and editor of nine books. He's won the PEN Center Award for Research Nonfiction and his books have made “Best of” lists at National Public Radio, Amazon, Kirkus, The New Republic, The Daily Beast, and more. He is a Past President of the Texas Institute of Letters, a literary honor society founded in 1936 with an elected membership consisting of the state’s most respected writers.

Davis is a double alumnus from Texas State University, where he received his B.A. in English and his M.A. in English with a concentration in Southwestern Studies.

As Series Editor for the Wittliff's Book Series, Davis has shepherded the publication of more than twenty-five books at university presses. He has curated more than forty exhibitions at The Wittliff and helped facilitate numerous important acquisitions that provide significant research opportunities.

Research Interests

Books include:

Beating Heart of the World: The Taos Art Colony, the Pueblo Resistance & the Plot to Revitalize Indigenous America (in process)

Viva Texas Rivers: Adventures, Misadventures & Glimpses of Nirvana Along our Storied Waterways. (co-editor of this literary anthology) Texas A&M University Press, 2022.

The Essential J. Frank Dobie (editor) Texas A&M University Press, 2019

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon & the Hunt for the Fugitive King of LSD (co-authored with Bill Minutaglio.) Twelve Books, New York. 2018.

Dallas 1963. (co-authored with Bill Minutaglio) Twelve Books, New York. 2013.

J. Frank Dobie: A Liberated Mind. University of Texas Press, 2009.

Land of the Permanent Wave: An Edwin “Bud” Shrake Reader, edited and with an introduction by Steven L. Davis. University of Texas Press, 2008.

Lone Star Sleuths: An Anthology of Texas Crime Fiction (co-editor), edited by Bill Cunningham, Steven L. Davis, Rollo P. Newsom. University of Texas Press, 2007.

Texas Literary Outlaws: Six Writers in the Sixties and Beyond. TCU Press, 2004.