Dan Vanderburg

As a sixth generation Texan, Dan Vanderburg, an author of seven published novels, a collection of short stories and poetry, and a contributor to an anthology of short stories and poetry, loves everything Texas, especially Rangers Baseball, Cowboys football, Texas history and country music. He's a Navy Viet Nam veteran, a member of The Sons of The Republic of Texas, serves as a docent at the Bridge Street History Museum in Granbury, Texas and serves on the Hood County, Texas Historical Commission. He lives and writes in Granbury, Texas. In 2019 Granbury was voted the Best Historical Small Town in America. Dan entertains himself writing Texas historical fiction novels, young adult fantasy novels, humorous short stories and poetry, and hanging out with family and friends who love to laugh as much as he does.

In addition to Dan's activities as a novelist and poet, he is an accomplished lecturer and trainer. He speaks for social, fraternal and business organizations, and for church groups and retirement homes. Dan's presentations are titled, Gone to Texas. He discusses what life was really like on the raw frontier of early Texas and includes book reviews and signings. His training programs include How to Write Your Memoir and How to Develop a Read and Critique Group. Dan also offers book readings and signings.

After growing up and attending schools and colleges in the Dallas area, Dan spent most of his working career in mid-management of companies in the high tech industry. He played a part of the semiconductor industry growth from its beginning days of the early nineteen sixties to the highly automated, very expensive facilities of the second decade of the twentieth century. He also started writing novels and poetry during his evenings and weekends about 1990.

When Dan began writing his first novel, Legacy of Dreams, he had no experience typing. He started with a spiral notebook and a number two pencil. It wasn't long before he invested in an early computer with word processing software and taught himself to type -- sort of. He uses a six finger method and corrects most typos as he goes. (There are many.)

The initial concept for Legacy of Dreams came from a little snippet of a story from family legend. It was an interesting little piece that he thought would make a good ending to a novel. From there, he developed strong characters with their own stories to tell and dropped them and their stories into actual historical events in Texas.