Elmer Kelton is the author of over forty novels, published over the last fifty years, all dealing with Texas and the West.

His best-known books include The Time It Never Rained, about the drought of the 1950s, The Day the Cowboys Quit, about the 1883 cowboy strike at Tascosa, Texas, The Man Who Rode Midnight, about an old rancher fighting creeping development around his ranch and remembering the time he rode the famous bucking bronc, Midnight, and The Wolf and the Buffalo, which contrasts a Comanche chief, whose world is falling apart, and a "buffalo" or African-American soldier, a former slave who sees opportunity ahead for the first time. Kelton has written about the span of Texas history from the Alamo to the late twentieth century, always with a firm hand on historical accuracy, character development, and the inevitability of change.

Elmer Kelton has won the Western Writers of America Spur Award six times and the Western Heritage (Wrangler) Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame four times. Western Writers of America, the Texas Institute of Letters, and the Western Literature Association have honored him for lifetime achievement.