Irene Sandell is a fifth generation Texas.  Born in West Texas on the Salt Fork of the Brazos and raised in the Central Texas town of Hamilton, she developed a love of  the  unique history of the Lone Star State and its people. Irene is known to friends and family as "Cindy' ( She'll explain where the nickname comes from if you have the time), but she uses her formal given name, Irene, for her novels.  She is a former school teacher and for most of her years in the history classroom she "got paid to talk about the place she loves most, Texas." Over the years Irene found thousands of interesting hidden stories tucked away in history to inspire her writing. 

In addition to her novels, she has  filmed, written, and produced 19 documentaries for the Texas History classroom, and she and her husband enjoy traveling around Texas to research, film and  photograph the state story.  She has also written several textbooks that are used in classrooms across the state.

Her films, textbooks, and other teaching materials can be seen on her www.texasvis.com website.