After some years of roaming around the country searching for a true "home", she became a real Mail-Order Bride and married a rancher in Nevada. Maggie Mae does not recommend purchasing a husband by mail, however, as "...it's costly to return them if they annoy you."
She makes the worst coffee west of the Mississippi River, and it has been repeatedly said that ".....you don't want to feed her biscuits to yer good cowdawg".
Maggie Mae spent 30 years writing poetry about the things and the land she loves before becoming brave enough to perform in public in Elko, NV without suffering "...imminent heart failure". She now shares her original cowboy poetry with audiences all over the country as she spins her rhyming tales about cowboys, men and women, how and why they love the land they caretake, and about a way of life that is slowly dying.
And, she has made it one of her highest priorities to reeducate the public about the fact that women were also there in the settling of the American West as "cowboys", ranchers, sheriffs, bank robbers and the like, right alongside the men, every step of the way. "...we're not better cowboys", she says of women, "...we were just there, too, and a proven necessary part of the settling of the great West. Great-Grandma had to be able to do whatever Great-Grandpa would do around the homestead, six-guns and all, and with a baby on her hip, to boot. Our history books do not illuminate those facts."
She makes her audiences laugh until their sides hurt, or cry -- all the while believing that they're right there on that windswept knoll, 100 years ago. And from her side-splitting poems of ranch humor to the hauntingly beautiful tale of "The Huntress", Maggie Mae manages to hold her audiences spellbound time after time.
As the President of Ruby Ranch Cattle Company, Maggie Mae raises "...a few scraggly longhorns", and has produced 5 albums to date: "The Huntress," "Hookers Gone Outlaw," "Huntress II....Legends Only," and "A Little Piece of Maggie's Heart". On her newest album, "Take the Long Way Home," the title poem dramatically tells the story of women on the wagon trains that headed West. She also has a 3-album set, "One Woman's Voice," and a lovely pink chapbook, Tales of a Mail Order Bride.
In the Fall of 1996, Maggie Mae Sharp was presented with the Will Rogers Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Advancement of Contemporary Cowboy Skills (as National Female Cowboy Poet of 1996) from the Academy of Western Artists. She was also nominated again for the 1997 & 1998 awards (a different artist will win this award each year), with a total of 4 nominations for 1997 and 3 nominations for 1998, the most nominations to be held by one artist in a given year.
Recently, her book "The Huntress", (now in its 3rd printing), was nominated for a Wrangler Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and was also nominated in 1997 & 1998 for "Book of the Year" from the Academy of Western Artists. With 48 pages beautifully illustrated in pen and ink, it tells the haunting tale of a lady bounty hunter in 1895, and also serves as the outline for her novel-in-progress of the same title.
Maggie Mae began her performance career in Elko, NV, and since then she has been a repeated featured performer in Arvada, CO; Prescott, AZ; Silver City, NM; Sierra Vista, AZ; Garden City, KS; Dodge City, KS; Valentine, NE; Colorado Springs, CO; Boston, MA; Safford, AZ; Abilene, TX; the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, OK; Beebe, AR; La Veta, CO; Longview, TX; Ruidoso, NM; Ridgway, CO; and the National Cowboy Symposium in Lubbock, TX.
A Board Member of the Black Forest Art Guild and an active member of the Pikes Peak Arts Council, Maggie Mae is currently writing three books: The Huntress (a Historical Romance), Searching for Mr. Right, a self-help book on self-esteem, and Resign in Power, a self-help book on how to leave dysfunctional organizations.
Also a renowned Motivational Storyteller and Public Speaker, Maggie Mae guest lectures in university-level Women's Studies programs on self-esteem issues, shares her "Searching for Mr. Right Workshops" with women's groups, and regularly guest-hosts on two talk radio shows.
You can email Maggie at: [email protected]