Pat Browning

Pat Browning was born and raised in Oklahoma. A graduate of Oklahoma A&M College -- Stillwater (Class of '49), she taught English and Journalism before moving to California's Central San Joaquin Valley in 1955.

Browning's professional writing credits go back to the 1960s, when she was a stringer for The Fresno Bee while working full time in a Hanford law office.

She is a veteran traveler. Her globetrotting in the 1970s led her into the travel business, first as a travel agent, then as a correspondent for TravelAge West, a trade journal published in San Francisco. In the 1990s, Browning signed on fulltime as a newspaper reporter and columnist, first at The Selma Enterprise and then at The Hanford Sentinel.

While at the Enterprise, her lifestyle coverage placed first two years in a row in the California Newspaper Publishers Association Better Newspapers Contest. She was also a finalist for the 1993 George F. Gruner Award for Meritorious Public Service in Journalism. At the Sentinel, her feature story on the Japanese-American "Yankee Samurais" of World War II, placed second in the CNPA contest.

She returned to Oklahoma in 2005 for an 8-year stay, before settling once more in the Central San Joaquin Valley.

Publications

Published FULL CIRCLE, a mystery novel 2001. Reissued as ABSINTHE 0F MALICE by Krill Press Dec. 1, 2008.

Work-in-progress, METAPHOR FOR MURDER, second book in Penny Mackenzie series.

Memoir WHITE PETUNIAS, about growing up in Oklahoma, appeared the RED DIRT BOOK FESTIVAL ANTHOLOGY, OKLAHOMA CHARACTER. An earlier version won second place in its category in Frontiers in Writing 2007, sponsored by Panhandle Professional Writers, Amarillo, TX.

Articles on writing have appeared in The SouthWest Sage, the monthly journal of SouthWest Writers.

"White Noise" appeared in SW Sage June 2007, and also in the OWFI Report September 2007.

"Charming An Audience" appeared in SW Sage August 2007.

"A Little Erotica Music, Please" appeared in SW Sage March 2008.

"What's That Smell?" appeared in SW Sage September 2008.