About Me
Theresa Hupp has lived on both ends of the Oregon Trail, which has inspired her writing. She grew up in Eastern Washington State and in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Her ancestors include early emigrants to Oregon and immigrants to Sacramento, California (though her California forebearers arrived after the Gold Rush). She now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, near the beginning of the Oregon Trail.
Narcissa Whitman was one of Theresa’s childhood heroines. As she was growing up, Theresa was in awe of the strength of the emigrants to Oregon and their fortitude in leaving behind everything and everyone they’d known in their former homes. She began thinking about writing about this era as a teenager, but it took her until her fifties to make it happen.
Theresa has also published two contemporary novels—corporate thrillers about a business in trouble—under a pseudonym, as well as an anthology under her own name, Family Recipe: Sweet and saucy stories, essays, and poems about family life. In addition, Theresa has short works in various anthologies published by Chicken Soup for the Soul, Mozark Press, and Kansas City Voices.
Theresa blogged for several years at Story & History: One writer’s journey through life and time. The posts from Story & History have been moved to this website, and Theresa still posts weekly on her blog. She often posts about the Oregon Trail and the California Gold Rush, as well as about her writing, her family, and her life. She invites readers to subscribe to her blog. Readers can also follow her on her Facebook Author page, and on her Amazon Author Central page.
Theresa served on the boards of Whispering Prairie Press and The Writers Place, and is a member of the Kansas City Writers Group, the Missouri Writers Guild, Oklahoma Writers Federation, Inc., and Write Brain Trust. She also has served on a variety of non-profit and civic boards and committees not related to writing.
She has a B.A. from Middlebury College and a J.D. from Stanford Law School, and she has worked as an attorney, human resources executive, and mediator.
Inquiries about Theresa’s writing and her availability to speak with book clubs, historical societies, writing groups, and others can be made through the “Contact Me” page.
Theresa is the award-winning author of novels, short stories, essays, and poetry, and has worked as an attorney, mediator, and human resources executive. Lead Me Home, Theresa’s first novel about Mac McDougall and Jenny Calhoun, was published in 2015 and has been a Number One bestselling novel about the Oregon Trail in Amazon’s Kindle Store. Her second novel, Now I’m Found, continuing Mac’s and Jenny’s story, has been a Number One bestseller about the California Gold Rush in the Kindle Store.
Both Lead Me Home and Now I’m Found have also won awards from the Oklahoma Writers Federation, Inc., and Lead Me Home was runner-up for the 2016 “Show-Me” Best Book Award sponsored by the Missouri Writers Guild. Lead Me Home was also the winner of the 2019 Missouri Indie Author Project adult fiction contest.
Her third book, Forever Mine, published in 2018, returned to the Oregon Trail and told the story of Esther Pershing and Daniel Abercrombie. Like Now I’m Found, Forever Mine was a nominee for the Thorpe Menn Literary Excellence Award.
My Hope Secured, another Thorpe Menn Literary Excellence Award nominee, was published in 2019, and continued to explore Theresa’s characters as they built their homes in Oregon. That novel featured Zeke Pershing and Hannah Bramwell.
Safe Thus Far, published in November 2021, took the saga into the next generation, and focused on William McDougall, Mac and Jenny’s oldest son. Safe Thus Far was a Thorpe Menn finalist in 2022.
When Heart Shall Fail told of a second-chance romance between Faith Bramwell and David Pershing, two characters from the earlier books.
This novel won First Place in the 2024 Best Fiction contest sponsored by the Missouri Writers Guild.
