Pen Name:
None
Genre:
Articles, Children’s, Essays, Flash Fiction, Memoir, Short Stories, Westerns, Other Nonfiction: Shakespeare and Theatre
Websites:
MichaelShurgot.com
Amazon Author Page
Social Media:
Other Contact Information:
mwshurgot@earthlink.net
Bio
I earned my BA in English from Canisius College in Buffalo, NY in 1965; my MA in English from the University of Minnesota in 1968; and my PhD from the University of Wisconsin in 1977. I taught at University of Texas-El Paso from 1975-1982; Seattle University from 1982-1986; and retired from South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia, WA in 2006. While at the CC I also taught in London three times and in Haverfordwest, Wales. I continue to teach Shakespeare and American fiction at Lifetime Learning Center, a senior educational program in Seattle.
Books: Fiction
Title: Green River Saga
Co-author: Rick O’Shea
Publisher: Sunstone Press, 2020
Genre: Western
Jeremiah Staggart discovers while on leave in 1863 that Union soldiers have burned his farm and killed his family. Because he could not save his family he succumbs to a paralyzing guilt that leads him to the edge of madness. After the horrific battle of Chickamauga he deserts and arrives in Green River, Wyoming in August, 1866. While working for Brent Tompkin, a cattle rancher, he becomes obsessed with saving a Cheyenne woman and her son who, he believes in his delusion, are his lost family. He becomes involved in a lethal struggle involving Sheriff Jim Talbot, who, along with Johnny Redfeather, is trying desperately to maintain peace between Tompkin and a Cheyenne tribe near Green River. At the final battle in Greens Canyon, the fate of the Cheyenne tribe, Johnny Redfeather, and Staggart’s frantic search for redemption and forgiveness collide.
Available for Sale
Title: Raven Mountain: A Mythic Tale
Publisher: Sunstone Press, 2023
Genre: Western
Raven Mountain: A Mythic Tale is the sequel to Green River Saga and focuses on Johnny Redfeather, who appears in the first novel. When Redfeather and Colonel William Swanson escape from a Georgia prison in 1864, Redfeather kills Hank Bulger, a young guard. Vowing revenge for his brother’s death, Jake Bulger pursues Redfeather and Swanson to Green River. After learning that Bulger has killed Swanson, Redfeather takes his pregnant lover, Courtney Dillard, and his adopted daughter Amanda to his cabin on Raven Mountain, where he prays that the Cheyenne deity, Maheo, will protect everything he cherishes, including his family and his Indian heritage.
Available for Sale
Title: Seotse: A Visionary Tale
Publisher: Sunstone Press, 2024
Genre: Western
Seotse: A Visionary Tale concludes the Green River Trilogy. Outside a tavern in Evanston, Wyoming on July 2, 1889, a Cheyenne elder, Nahkohemahta’sooma, in English “Spirit Bear,” confronts Johnny Redarrow, the son of Johnny Redfeather and Courtney Dillard, and tells him that he must now go on a journey to search for his father’s spirit. Together they venture to Eagle Canyon, where Johnny Redfeather is buried, and find his sacred arrows miraculously preserved. They then visit Redfeather’s cabin on Raven Mountain, where his son senses his father’s spirit and agrees to participate in a sacred Cheyenne renewal ceremony. Accompanied by Mary White Eagle, whom they meet at Fort Laramie, they begin their journey to the Cheyenne reservation in Oklahoma where Redarrow will volunteer for the spiritual renewal ceremony.
Available for Sale
Books: Nonfiction
Title: Stages of Play
Publisher: University of Delaware Press, 1998
Genre: Scholarly
Stages of Play: Shakespeare’s Theatrical Energies in Elizabethan Performance, analyzes how Shakespeare incorporated the designs of his theatre, especially The Globe, to create dramatic meanings in contemporary performances of his plays.
Available for Sale
Title: North American Players of Shakespeare: A Book of Interviews
Publisher: University of Delaware Press, 2007
Genre: Scholarly
North American Players of Shakespeare contains interviews of twenty-one prominent actors from Canada and the United States who have played major roles in Shakespeare’s plays.
Available for Sale
Title: Shakespeare’s Sense of Character: On the Page and From the Stage
Co-editor: Yu Jin Ko
Publisher: Ashgate, 2012
Genre: Scholarly
The essays in Shakespeare’s Sense of Character highlight the advantages of examining Shakespeare’s major characters from the combined perspectives of literary criticism and stage performances.
Available for Sale
Title: Could You Be Startin’ From Somewhere Else? Sketches From Buffalo And Beyond
Publisher: North Charleston: CreateSpace, 2014
Genre: Memoir
Like all memoirs, Michael W. Shurgot’s Could You Be Startin’ From Somewhere Else? Sketches from Buffalo and Beyond is a kaleidoscopic mixture of memory and history. The title is the punch line from an Irish joke the author’s mother told every St. Patrick’s Day. The obvious answer to the question is “No”; no one can start from somewhere else. With this as his premise, Shurgot explores his early years growing up in a middle-class, multi-ethnic neighborhood in Buffalo, NY from the late 1940s to the early 1960s to find the roots of his adult life. The book evokes an era and a culture in post World War II America that, while vastly different from our own, is, as the author shows, worthy of remembrance.
My memoir details how my childhood in Buffalo, NY, especially my family, neighborhood, friends, and education shaped the adult I became in later life. The central concept is “home”: the place where one begins, which one never really leaves, and to which one must always return.
Available for Sale
Articles/Essays
“Trophy Mountain Meadow” ♦ Community College Humanities Review; Vol 5 # 1 (Fall 2020)
“Tres Personas en Una Bicicleta”
♦ ♦ ♦ Road Scholar; Spring, 2017
♦ ♦ ♦ Writing It Real, 2021, an online anthology; Shelia Bender, editor
“On the Prevalence of Curses: the Babe, the Goat, and the Seattle Mariners” ♦ Elysian Fields Quarterly; Vol. 24 # 3 (2007)
“The History of Baseball” ♦ Elysian Fields Quarterly; Vol. 16 # 1 (1999)
“Caesar’s Stuff; or, the Modern Baseball Fan” ♦ Hardball; (July, 1990)
“Stealing Home” ♦ Elysian Fields Quarterly; Vol. 12 # 3; (1993)
“The baseball Cap as Talisman” ♦ The Minneapolis Review of Baseball; Vol 10 # 2 (1991)
“Dike, Ananke, and the 1984 Chicago Cubs” ♦ Popular Culture Review; Vol. 11 (December 1990)
Title: Writing Personal Essays: How to Shape Your Life Experiences for the Page
Editor: Sheila Bender
Publisher: Writers Digest Books; First Edition (January 1, 1995)
Genre: Writing Reference Books
“Caesar’s Stuff; or the Modern Baseball Fan”
A subtle critique of all the stats that the “modern” baseball fan consults during a game which often causes him to miss “the magic of the game being played before him.”
Shelia Bender shows readers how to find the common threads in their lives, the threads that tie the episodes of their lives to the larger web of human emotion and existence. No topic is dull or taboo. Personal stories are important, and Bender shows how to tell them in the reader’s own voice. Also includes a chapter on publishing, how to find the right place to send essays, and how to present work to editors.
Available for Sale
Short Stories
“The Departure” ♦ Flash Fiction ♦ The Galway Review; March 11, 2023
“Directions” ♦ Humor ♦ The Galway Review; March 30, 2022
