Born in New Jersey and raised in California, John L. Kessell did not set out to be a professional historian. His work in the 1960s, however, at Tumacacori National Monument, site of a Spanish colonial mission, alerted him to the possibility. Returning to graduate school with new purpose, he earned his doctorate at the University of New Mexico, survived a precarious decade as historian-for-hire, and joined the UNM Department of History. His major historical editing project with colleagues Rick Hendricks, Meredith D. Dodge, and Larry D. Miller resulted in the six-volume Journals of don Diego de Vargas, New Mexico, 1691-1704. Kessell is also author of Kiva, Cross and Crown: The Pecos Indians and New Mexico, 1540-1840, Pueblos, Spaniards, and the Kingdom of New Mexico, and East Orange by Christmas, the latter also from Sunstone Press.
