Bio

credit: Steve Dayton

B.J. Hollars is the author of several books, most recently Dinosaur Dreams: A Father and Daughter In Search of America's Prehistoric Past (Oct. 2025), Wisconsin for Kennedy: The Primary That Launched a President and Changed The Course of History, Year of Plenty: A Family's Season of Grief, Go West Young Man: A Father and Son Rediscover America on the Oregon Trail, Midwestern Strange: Hunting Monsters, Martians and the Weird in Flyover Country, The Road South: Personal Stories of the Freedom Riders,  Flock Together: A Love Affair With Extinct Birds, From the Mouths of Dogs: What Our Pets Teach Us About Life, Death, and Being Human, as well as a collection of essays, This Is Only A Test.  Additionally, he has also written Thirteen Loops: Race, Violence and the Last Lynching in America, Opening the Doors: The Desegregation of the University of Alabama and the Fight for Civil Rights in Tuscaloosa, Dispatches from the Drownings, and Sightings.  He and his film partner, Steve Dayton, have also completed a documentary When Rubber Hit The Road,  

Hollars is the recipient of an Upper Midwest Emmy® award, the Truman Capote Prize for Literary Nonfiction, the Anne B. and James B. McMillan Prize, the Council of Wisconsin Writers' Blei-Derleth Award, the Society of Midland Authors Award, and both the Midwest Book Awards Gold and Silver medals. His work has been featured on C-SPAN, Lit Hub, Washington Post, Star-Tribune, The Millions, and Wisconsin Life.
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He is the founder and executive director of the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild and the founder of the Midwest Artist Academy, as well as a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, and a columnist for The Leader-Telegram.  

Click here for a video with B.J., recipient of a 2018 Vanguard Award.