Fairlee E. Winfield

BUFFALOed is the First Place Grand Prize Winner for fiction in the 2009 Indie Book Awards. I am so happy to receive this honor. It is a tribute to my grandmother and our Montana family heritage. Thank you, Independent Book Publishing Professionals Group.

My novel is about a young Norwegian immigrant who expects to find buffalo when she arrives in Montana to be the hired girl of Charlie Russell, the famous Cowboy Artist. Instead, she finds Indians more educated than most whites, social order as stratified as Eastern society, and an assortment of boozers and bamboozlers, women chasers, and gamblers. She balks at the chicanery when she suspects the gigantic mural commissioned for the Montana State House is not being painted by the great Cowboy Artist.

Inspiration for BUFFALOed was sparked by my grandmother's stories of working in the renowned Cowboy Artist's Montana home.

I'm a Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Cultural Studies at Northern Arizona University and Arizona State University. I was a Fulbright lecturer in Peru, and an exchange professor in Japan. Right now I'm working on a new novel, BURMA SHAVE DAYS AND EVANGELIST NIGHTS. I'm hoping it will be finished by before the New Year.