Brian Patrick Duggan

Brian Patrick Duggan is the author of "Thunder in the Valley of the Queens" – a historical novel set in WWI Egypt.

His non-fiction works include the award-winning “Saluki: The Desert Hound and the English Travelers Who Brought It to the West,” "Horror Dogs: Man's Best Friend as Movie Monster," and "General Custer, Libbie Custer and their Dogs: A Passion for Hounds, from the Civil War to Little Bighorn.” Also, there's this little gem, "Fireside Dog Tales: An Omnibus of Hound Fiction & Humor."

So, that’s the beginning of the formal bit. Here’s the more interesting stuff.

I’m a canine historian–storyteller, and believe that history should be told in a friendly, informative style. My articles about dogs have won national awards with several having been published internationally. Of these, “Dear Miss Amherst ... Yours Sincerely, T.E. Lawrence” revealed a previously unknown connection between Lawrence of Arabia and Salukis —and which started me on my first book.

I was a university technology educator for 33+ years in the University of California and California State University systems (my degrees are in Theatre/Film and Instructional Technology/Education). As a dog show judge I’ve traveled to Australia, Canada, England, Finland, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and all over the States. Since retiring from the university, I work as an acquisitions editor for McFarland Publishers’ Dogs in Our World series. My wife, Wendy, and I live in Central California with our Salukis whom we rarely shift off the sofa when we need a seat …

Some of my favorite adventures include:

• Taking a formal oath to do research at the Bodleian Library in Oxford and then getting locked in after closing.

• Handling the bones of the first Saluki imported to in England in 1895.

• Being arguably the only person to have eaten at both a Norwich pub built on the site of a medieval witch-burning pit and at the house where the conspirators plotted to assassinate President Lincoln.

• Sitting in the science fiction author Robert Heinlein's writing chair.

• Sleeping in a haunted medieval mill house.

• Hiking to the spot where General George Armstrong Custer was last with his four favorite staghounds before the battle of Little Bighorn.

• Setting microphones for astronaut Kathy Sullivan, astronomer Carl Sagan, author Tom Wolf, and the amazing Dr. Stephen Hawking.