David Fitz-Gerald is a multiple award-winning author of frontier and pioneer western fiction.
His breakthrough series, Ghosts Along the Oregon Trail, won the Chanticleer Grand Prize for Book Series and the Laramie Award Grand Prize for Book One, A Grave Every Mile. His standalone novel, Rathuun: King of the Prairie, won the American Fiction Awards, Western category and the NYC Big Book Award for Western Fiction.
Dave writes from the wilds of western Vermont—about as far west as you can get without slipping into New York. Though he’s never wrangled beeves to market, Dave was a top hand on his grandfather’s dude ranch in the Adirondack Mountains… before he turned ten. He’s lived most of his life on dirt roads. Whenever he gets the chance, he travels west to recharge his spirit on the windswept prairies.
He’s an Adirondack 46’er which means that he’s hiked to the top of every mountain in the park. In 2018, Dave completed the 1960s fitness craze by hiking 50 miles in one day. That’s one heck of a long walk, but not nearly as grueling as the iconic trails that he chases in his fiction.
Even after all these years, Dave still has his head in the clouds like Ken from My Friend Flicka, and a quiet, self-reliant spirit like Sam from The Trumpet of the Swan. That blend of wonder, heart, and spirit runs through the characters he portrays. His editor states he is “exceptionally good at creating real moments between characters”—and readers seem to agree.
As long as there’s coffee in the kitchen, Dave will be plotting one adventurous story after another.
