Date Published: September 30, 2025
Publisher: She Writes Press/Tantor
Narrator: Ann Marie Gideon
Run Time: 8 hours and 4 minutes
Growing up in West Texas, Jane Little Botkin didn't have designs on becoming a beauty queen. But not long after joining a pageant on a whim in college, she became the first protégé of El Paso's Richard Guy and Rex Holt, known as the "Kings of Beauty"—just as the 1970's counterculture movement began to take off.
A pink, rose-covered gown—a Guyrex creation—symbolizes the fairy tale life that young women in Jane's time imagined beauty queens had. Its near destruction exposes reality: the author's failed relationship with her mother, and her parents' failed relationship with one another. Weaving these narrative threads together is the Wild West notion that anything is possible, especially do-overs.
The Pink Dress awakens nostalgia for the 1960s and 1970s, the era's conflicts and growth pains. A common expectation that women went to college to get "MRS" degrees—to find a husband and become a stay-at-home wife and mother—often prevailed. How does one swim upstream against this notion among feminist voices that protest "If You Want Meat, Go to a Butcher!" at beauty pageants, two flamboyant showmen, and a developing awareness of self? Torn between women's traditional roles and what women could be, Guyrex Girls evolved, as did the author.
Author Interview
Tell me about yourself. Where are you from?
JLB: I’m a multi-generational Texan, I guess fifth generation if I consider jumping from side to side up my family tree. I was born in the Texas Panhandle, raised in the west Texas border town of El Paso, extended my professional career in Central Texas, specifically Dripping Springs just “west of weird,” and now reside in south-central New Mexico in a mountain wilderness (where all the Texans go!)
What genre do you read? Who's an author you read? Name your top 5 authors.
JLB: I am primarily a nonfiction reader of history, biography, and lately memoir. I can not separate out five authors for you. In my world, my friends are mostly authors, and I review and blurb for them. They are all top authors in my book.
What is your favorite sport?
JLB: Football, without a doubt, with baseball slowing rising to second place, and winter sports, third. I raised sons and now have grandsons who play these sports. My only granddaughter was also a softball player before college. We are athletic family. My past broken bones can attest to that.
Favorite thing about your state you live in.
JLB: New Mexico has a fascinating southwest history, blended with an array of cultures. Because of that, authors, artists, and musicians flock to the state. The scenery is breathtaking, the colors vivid, and New Mexico has a varied geography for outdoor enthusiasts like me. I feel comfortable here, being who I am. This should be an ad for New Mexico!
How long have you been writing?
It is to me. I was an English teacher and curriculum specialist for thirty years in Texas.
One day, my high school junior son brought a cartoon to my office, asking,
“Mom, isn’t this our uncle?” The cartoon was of a man stripped to his underwear
while hanging from a rope with the Montana vigilante code 3-7-77 pinned on him.
A man in a mask and bowler hat is dropping coins into the hand of a squirrely man,
representing the press. The robber baron says, “Just say he is a traitor!”
The man was my uncle, Frank Little.
in his Advanced Placement American History class. I knew part of Frank’s story,
but I had no idea how significant his life had been because my family hushed the story.
At that moment, I knew I would research and tell the story, though I could
not actually begin for several more years. The resulting
book, Frank Little and the IWW: The Blood That Stained an American
Family (University of Oklahoma Press 2017) won national awards,
and I was hooked as a researcher and writer.
national-award-winning books with one to be released in early 2027.
The Pink Dress, A Memoir of a Reluctant Beauty Queen is my sole memoir,
written during Covid, also award-winning and now an audio book.
Otherwise my books are western biography, particularly about
empowering women who no one considered before.
What would you tell a writer who is just starting out? What program do you use for writing? What advice would you give to a writer working on their first book? What’s your writing software of choice?
JLB: Well, obviously, it’s never too late! I always thought my students wrote better than I. I would tell new writers that writing is like sculpting, you have to work at your craft or project, reshaping and reshaping dozens of time. I would also tell writers to attend craft workshops, as many as they can! Though I write nonfiction, a fiction author can teach me much! Setting the scene, structure, literary elements, etc.
what you believe should be in the manuscript but get advice as to
how to present. Ask questions. You may just have a structural problem.
Finally, though you may shelve a manuscript in frustration,
never throw it away. As one’s confidence and skills develop, that
failed manuscript can be reborn. This is true for all writers, actually.
middle of the night, a word you just like, an “a hah” moment, etc. If
something clicks in my brain during sleep, I try to wake up and type
the thought on my phone’s calendar immediately. Otherwise, whatever
bright idea I has vanished from my mind before I wake up. And that hurts.
ChatGPT. It tries to insert phrases and words I do not want. Never
give in to this thief. Beware of the temptation. Be original.
How do you organize everything and find the time to sit down and write?
JLB: Admittedly I am unorganized in the beginning of my research. One might think I am a pantser. I spend weeks and sometimes year collecting what I need. As this time goes, themes, strands, etc, begin formulating in my brain as I collect. I am sure to jot these down. When I finally believe I have exhausted my research, I group everything chronologically. Only then do I begin to write, using a technique my editor for the University of Oklahoma Press taught me, that is how to “braid” the narrative. I do not write linearly like other scholarly authors. It’s too boring. (See how fiction writing techniques can help nonfiction authors?) For my memoir The Pink Dress, I do the same techniques. I use foreshadowing, flashbacks, etc. What IS different is that I present historical context since this IS a narrative about “beauty, identity, and liberation in 1970s America.” I do not rely solely on dialogue.
she loses momentum. Otherwise, the brain must reset and start anew.
The issue is making certain to walk away and get physical exercise.
I usually write until lunch and then I try to focus on other daily activities.
Nevertheless, my subject is always on my mind, so I keep a pencil and
pad of paper nearby just in case.
About the Author
A NATIONAL AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR, JANE...
melds personal narratives of American families often with compelling stories of western women. Jane is a late bloomer as an author. After teaching for thirty years, she was honored by the Texas State Legislature by formal resolution for her work with local history and education in 2008. She edited and directed publishing fifteen volumes of Texas local history with her former students before she decided to write on her own. Jane's first book propelled her membership on the Western Writers of America board and later as its vice president. Jane continues to judge entries for the WWA's prestigious Spur Award; reviews new book releases; authors articles for various magazines; and speaks to groups in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas.
JANE'S FIRST TWO WORKS HAVE WON NUMEROUS AWARDS IN HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY AND WOMEN'S STUDIES...
including two Spur Awards, two Caroline Bancroft History Prizes, the Texas Book Award, and the Barbara Sudler Award for the best book written on the West by a woman. Jane was also a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award, High Plains Book Award, two Women Writing the West’s Willa Literary Awards, Independent Book Award, Foreword Indies Book Awards, and Sarton Book Award.
Released in fall 2024, Jane’s third book—what she calls her Covid book—is The Pink Dress, A Memoir of a Reluctant Beauty Queen, a Foreword Indies Book Award winner in pop culture and Women Writing the West's Willa Literary Award finalist in creative nonfiction. The narrative brings far West Texas to life during the 1970s’ American Counterculture era.
Jane's newest book, The Breath of a Buffalo, A Biography of Mary Ann Goodnight, will be released from the University of Oklahoma Press tentatively in fall 2026.
Today Jane blissfully escapes into her literary world in the remote White Mountain Wilderness near Nogal, New Mexico, when she is not speaking at various events or preparing for her next nonfiction book.
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