Goodreads asked Fred Burwell:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Fred Burwell The germ of Prairie Hill hails from "Jimmy Lathrop," a short story published in 1991 (reprinted on my website). I loosely based the story's setting on one of my high school baseball games played against a reform school run by monks. I based the central character on what I imagined might have happened to a long ago friend. Over the years, the character stayed with me and I began to take notes about Jimmy and his family and others and explored both their history and a possible setting. Eventually I knew that I had a novel waiting to be written and then I absolutely had to write it. Prairie Hill is not an autobiographical novel. However, I can trace many bits and pieces to observations made over the years, to people I've known or simply come across and places I've visited or lived in. My long-time journal keeping helped, too, although I didn't lift anything directly from it. One of the fleeting images I wrote about in my journal was of a man wearing a cow costume, waving at passersby and hawking the "best burgers in town." By the time I wrote Prairie Hill, however, the cow had grown feathers and the costumed stranger, Jimmy Lathrop, was advertising the "best chicken in town."

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