Gifford MacShane

I write historical fiction that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit.

My novels feature a family of Irish immigrants who settle in the Arizona Territory in the late 1800s. I've always loved folk music, whether it be Irish, Appalachian, spirituals, or the songs of the cowboys. My love of the Old West goes back to childhood, when my father introduced me to the works of Zane Grey. Later I became interested in the Irish diaspora, having realized my father's family had lived through An Gorta Mor, the Great Irish Potato Famine of the mid-1800s. Writing allows me to combine my three great interests into a series of family stories, each with romance, traditional song lyrics, and a dash of Celtic mysticism. Having grown up in a large & often boisterous Irish-American family, I'm intimately acquainted with the workings of such a clan and use those experiences to good purpose (though no names will be named!) I am a member of the Historical Novel Society and I love to sing, though my cats don’t always appreciate it. A grammar nerd who still loves diagramming sentences, I currently live in Pennsylvania with my husband Richard, the Pied Piper of stray cats.