H. Lee Barnes, author of ten books, including four novels and four short story collections. His newest, EMERALD CITY BLUES (University of Nevada Press; October 14, 2025), is a searing historical novel set in San Pedro, California during World War II that paints a vivid and memorable picture of forbidden romance, war-time culture, and the human fabric of our shared identities in times that seek to divide us, illustrating the many surprising similarities between then and now. Lee Barnes has lots to talk about. His life before he became a writer was thrilling and fascinating and led to him becoming a writer and professor. He was a Green Beret in the Vietnam War and was honored by the Vietnam Veterans of America with an Excellence in the Arts Award for his Vietnam War books. He was employed as a detective, and then as a sergeant. He worked for Griffin’s Detective Agency as a Private Investigator and for the Nevada Division of Investigation and Narcotics. He’s even gone undercover. In 2009, he was inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. He earned his MFA in creative writing from Arizona State University and taught English and creative writing at the College of Southern Nevada, retiring emeritus in 2017. His short fiction has received the Willamette Fiction Award and the Arizona Author's Association Fiction Award. His last collection, Life Is a Country Western Song, garnered the 2019 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award for Fiction Other. Barnes lives in the Hualapai Valley in northern Arizona.

H. Lee Barnes - Biography