Michael W. Shurgot

I was born in Buffalo, New York in 1943 and claim ancestors from four European nationalities: Polish and Ukrainian (my father) and German and Irish (my mother). I attended Canisius High School and Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, majoring in English, and then earned my MA in English from the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis in 1968 and my PhD in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1977. I subsequently taught at University of Texas-El Paso, Seattle University, and I retired as Professor of Humanities from South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia, WA in 2006. My memoir, "Could You Be Startin' from Somewhere Else? Sketches from Buffalo and Beyond," is available from Amazon.com. The memoir looks back fondly at my childhood in Buffalo from the late 1940s to the early 1960s, and chronicles a myriad of humorous, perplexing, and sad family experiences in a lower middle-class neighborhood of immigrant families in post WW II Buffalo. It is a search for the present in the past, and for the meaning of that elusive word "home" in a land of immigrants and constant mobility. My novel, "Green River Saga," a classic Western novel that I co-wrote with my former South Puget Sound CC student Rick O'Shea of Los Angeles, was published in April, 2020 by Sunstone Press in Santa Fe, NM. It's an exciting example of historical-fiction that narrates a battle for land and water rights between a band of Southern Cheyenne Indians led by Chief Running Bear and a vicious cattle baron named Brent Tompkin. Added to this struggle is the plight of Jeremiah Staggart, a deserter from two terrible Civil War battles, who goes mad when he finds his wife and child murdered by Union soldiers in 1863. After the war Staggart works his way to Green River where he eventually joins Sheriff James Talbot and Johnny Redfeather, of mixed Irish/Cheyenne heritage, in their attempt to solve the land disputes. Kirkus Review wrote that "O'Shea and Shurgot illuminate their story with wonderful details of life on the frontier. . . . [T]he characters are well drawn and embellished with significant backstory." Green River Saga is available both in paper format and as an E-Book. My second novel, Raven Mountain: A Mythic Tale, was just published in July, 2023. It is the sequel to Green River Saga, and in fact begins about four seconds after GRS ends. Several characters from GRS return: Sheriff Jim Talbot; Doctor Mark Johnson; Milly and Frank, owners of Milly's Green River Saloon; Snuffy, the saloon's little devil, who matures into Amanda; Courtney Dillard, who is carrying Redfeather's child; and of course Johnny Redfeather himself, who is the main character in Raven Mountain, although he shares the spotlight with the mountain itself. Raven Mountain focuses on the revenging madness of Jake Bulger, whose younger brother Redfeather killed while escaping with Colonel William Swanson from a Georgia POW camp in 1864. Bulger is determined to kill both Swanson and Redfeather, and the novel centers on Redfeather's desperate attempts to save his adopted family and simultaneously preserve what he can of his Cheyenne heritage. Raven Mountain includes substantial information on Cheyenne mythology and religion, and introduces a legendary Cheyenne mythological monster who acts decisively on Redfeather's behalf. Or does it? See for yourself in this thrilling and poignant novel that combines beautiful evocations of the Wyoming wilderness with a probing analysis of the importance of cultural identity in human lives. I have also published three books on Shakespeare: "Stages of Play: Shakespeare's Theatrical Energies in Elizabethan Performance" (Delaware, 1998); "North American Players of Shakespeare: A Book of Interviews" (Delaware, 2007); and co-edited "Shakespeare's Sense of Character: From the Page and on The Stage" (Ashgate, 2013). My wife Gail and I have lived in Seattle since 1982. We have two children, Mara and Nicholas; and three grandchildren, Max, Bennett, and Wilson Shurgot.