Alberta writer Frank Dabbs is the author of two unauthorized political biographies, Ralph Klein: A Maverick Life and Preston Manning: The Roots of Reform. His Branded by the Wind, the story of the Herron family who made the 1914 Turner Valley oil and gas discovery, won the Petroleum History Society 2001 book of the year award. Dobbs also holds the PHS lifetime achievement award for his journalism and authorship about Canadian petroleum history.