Sharon Magee, a Phoenix-based writer and award-winning
author, specializes in history with a heavy emphasis on the American Indian.
She is also a generalist with extensive publishing credits in such magazines as Arizona Highways, Phoenix Magazine, The Valley Guide Quarterly, Priorities, and Phoenix Downtown.
In 2002,
Arizona Highways Books published Magee's award-winning book, Geronimo! Stories of an American Legend. And in 2003, the University of Arizona Press released an anthology, Arizona Goes to War, in which she wrote the chapter on the American Indians.
She has
written a historical novel based on the Apache Wars of the late 1800s, and
is working on its sequel. Also in the works is another non-fiction book on
the Apaches.
Magee’s
interest in the written word began at four years of age when she taught herself
to read. Later, when her fourth grade teacher encouraged her writing talent,
she was hooked. Her fascination with the West evolved when her parents enrolled
her in a children's history book club. She devoured stories of Daniel Boone,
Davey Crockett, George Armstrong Custer, Geronimo, and many others. She still
has those books today.
This
love of writing and the West never left her, although it remained buried
during those years when she was earning a living and raising a family. Family
grown, a job transfer led her and her husband to Arizona. After Magee took
an Arizona history class her interest resurfaced, along with an idea for
a novel. In doing research on the Apache Wars era for this novel, she found
herself riveted by the violent and beautiful history of Arizona and the Apache
people.
Magee
has won recognition and awards for her fiction and nonfiction, including
the Arizona Newspapers Association Award for Outstanding Writing. She is
a sought-after speaker and belongs to several professional organizations,
including Western Writers of America, Women Writing the West, the Society
of Southwestern Authors, and the National Federation of Press Women.
She and
her husband live in Phoenix. Between them they have four beautiful children
and four awesome grandsons.
