I'm Chad Dundas, author of the critically acclaimed novels Champion of the World and The Blaze.

Champion of the World (2016) was named one of the best books of the year by the Boston Globe and was a finalist for the David J. Langum prize for historical fiction. The Blaze (2020) was a honor selection for the Montana Book Award.

Though they take place in very different time periods, my books are both set in the American West. I'm a native of Montana (where I still live today) and the West I grew up in was a complicated place. Its landscapes are awe-inspiring and beautiful but also dangerous. The western lifestyle is often mythologized by mass media, but that legend conceals harder truths about what, for many, is a struggle just to get by.

These contradictions power my fiction, and I hope the end result is both entertaining and thought provoking.

In addition to writing novels, I'm also podcaster, a medium I fell in love with over a decade ago. I'm a co-producer on the history and true crime podcast Death in the West and co-host of the long-running Co-Main Event Podcast. In 2022, Death in the West won a national Leadership in History award from the Association of State and Local History and has been featured in the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Crime Reads, Uproxx, Huck Magazine and numerous regional publications.

Before becoming an author and podcaster, I spent most of my adult life as a sportswriter. I worked for national outlets such as ESPN, The Athletic, NBC Sports, The Sporting News, Bleacher Report and the Associated Press, among others.

I live in Missoula, Montana with my wife and children.