Lydia is an award-winning author and storyteller. Her first book, Dust Bowl Girls: The Inspiring Story of the Team that Barnstormed Its Way to Basketball Glory, is a thrilling depiction of the birth of women’s competitive basketball that takes place in Oklahoma and Texas during the Great Depression. A finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award and the Willa Literary Award, Dust Bowl Girls received the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame For the Love of the Game Award in 2023.

Her new book, The Cure for Women: Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Challenge to Victorian Medicine that Changed Women’s Lives Forever, explores the nineteenth-century roots of the pseudoscience that ties women’s health issues to their reproductive biology. It highlights the efforts of women doctors and suffragists, particularly Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, who fought back against these attempts to control women’s bodies and lives. The Cure for Women received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly and rave reviews from The New York Times and Book Page.

An Oklahoma native, Lydia’s roots run deep. Some of her favorite times as a child were spent on her grandfather’s ranch near Chickasha making hay-bale tunnels, fishing for bass, or traipsing through miles of pasture. Today, she lives in Denver with her husband and their five cats. Her outdoor adventures include hiking the long, rocky trails that wind through the mountains of Colorado.

Prior to becoming an author, Lydia worked for many years developing eLearning for continuing education in the fields of nursing and healthcare.