Andrew E Stoner Books in Order

Andrew E. Stoner is an Indiana native whose nonfiction ranges from political history and media studies to true crime, television, and biography. Across those subjects, he returns to the same big questions: how public stories get told, who gets heard, and what communities remember after the headlines fade.

His interest in writing started early. As a boy, Stoner taught himself to type on an old Underwood manual typewriter, a suitably hands-on beginning for a writer who would spend much of his career working with reporting, archives, public records, and the details that make a story hold together.

He studied journalism at Franklin College of Indiana, earning his bachelor's degree in 1986, then completed a master's degree in journalism at Ball State University in 1995. He later earned a PhD from Colorado State University, where his doctoral work became the foundation for one of his best-known books.

Before moving into university teaching, Stoner worked as a reporter, including at the South Bend Tribune. He also served as the civilian public information officer for the Indianapolis Police Department, experience that helped inform his interest in crime, law enforcement, and the complicated public life of major cases.

That background is all over books such as Notorious 92, Wanted in Indiana, Wicked Indianapolis, and Courthouse Chaos. These are books for readers who like history with the polish stripped away, full of crimes, fugitives, courthouse drama, and the human fallout that remains long after an investigation ends.

The subjects change. The reporting habit stays.

Stoner has also written about politics and the media's role in shaping public life. In Campaign Crossroads, he traces presidential politics in Indiana from Abraham Lincoln through Barack Obama, showing how a state can be central to one election and overlooked in the next. In Fear, Hate, and Victimhood, he compares the campaign rhetoric of George Wallace and Donald Trump, with attention to resentment, spectacle, media coverage, and the language of insiders and outsiders.

His 2019 biography The Journalist of Castro Street grew from his doctoral research and extensive interviews. The book follows Randy Shilts, the openly gay journalist whose AIDS reporting helped force a wider public conversation during the early years of the epidemic. Stoner examines Shilts's ambition, reporting, advocacy, personal struggles, and the difficult line between journalism and activism.

Questions about media, sexuality, and public attitudes also shape Dear Abby, I'm Gay. There, Stoner looks at advice columns from the 1930s through the 2000s, using their questions and answers to track changing American ideas about homosexuality and LGBTQ lives. His work often takes familiar parts of public culture, newspapers, elections, TV, crime stories, and asks what they reveal when viewed over time.

Alongside his writing, Stoner has taught communication studies and public relations at Sacramento State. His books are a good fit for readers who enjoy researched nonfiction that stays close to people, places, and the records they leave behind.