He was born in Butler, Pennsylvania, but grew up in Port Arthur, Texas.
He attended Tulane University on a football scholarship, and he has a master's degree in Library Science as well as in History.
Lyons is also the grandson of Captain Ulysses Grant Lyons, who ran and was briefly pronounced winner of a U.S. House of Representatives seat, before Earl Beshlin was eventually named the winner.
[2] His earliest book was Tales That People Tell In Mexico (1972), and later ones include Andy Jackson and the battles for New Orleans (1976), The Creek Indians (1978), Mustangs, Six Shooters, and Barbed Wire: How the West Was Really Won (1981), and Pacific Coast Indians of North America (1983).
His most significant publication to date was the anthology called 4-4-4 (1977), in which four of his short stories appeared in a book with four short stories by Laurence Gonzales and four short stories by Roger Rath, published by the University of Missouri Press [4] Lyons has had short stories published in Cimarron Review, Confrontation, Negative Capability, Northwest Review, Redbook, and Seattle Review.