TL HINES BIO

Tony L. Hines has been a professional writer for more than 15 years, with articles appearing in publications as varied as Log Homes, Food & Wine, and Travel & Leisure. In 2001, Tony authored the nonfiction book Billings: A Shining Star in Big Sky Country (CCI Publishing), a historical portrait of Montana’s largest city.

Tony’s fiction has most recently appeared at Web Del Sol (“Hell Comes Calling” in Del Sol Review) and Infuze Magazine (“Of Microbes and Men”). In 2005, he won the “Best Spec Fiction Novel” category in the Maryland Writers’ Association Novel Contest. Tony also maintains an active weblog at tlhines.com; in 2004, he blogged a series of interviews with independent long-shot presidential candidates entitled The Dark Horse Dialogues.

In 1995, Tony founded H2O Advertising with his wife Nancy. In 2003, after eight years of growth, they merged their company with Wendt Advertising (www.iwendt.com) to create the largest advertising agency in the Northern Rockies. From 1995 to 2002, Tony was also the Managing Editor and a contributing writer for Locations magazine, a publication published by the Association of Film Commissioners International (www.afci.org) to promote on-location film production around the world. Locations is distributed to the feature film and commercial production industries.

Tony’s writing has received numerous awards, including state and regional Addys, Silver Microphones (national radio advertising), Tellys (national television), Golden Spikes (PR writing awards) and the Print Magazine Regional Design Annual. He was was also selected for the inaugural edition of the “40 Under 40” awards, presented by Western Business News to influential Montana business leaders 40 years of age or less.

Tony’s long list of past odd jobs includes trimming Christmas trees, sorting seed potatoes, selling strawberries, and cleaning cadaver storage rooms. As a teen, he was undefeated in air guitar competitions (a record of 3-0), in which he performed songs by ZZ Top.