"In Tragic Life", the first of Fisher's autobiographical tetralogy, had many favorable reviews, and a second printing was issued by Doubleday and Caxton in 1933. The next two books, published in 1934 and 1935, were divisive, with critics receiving them as "sternly beautiful" or "erotic tripe." In 1935 Fisher accepted a job with the Federal Writer's Project, part of the Works Progress Administration, and wrote most of "The Idaho Guide". There were few other writers in Idaho who could help him with the project and his superiors were surprisingly ignorant of Idaho's features and at one point ordered him to remove all photos of potatoes, Idaho's best-known crop. Fisher received help from high school students, who provided obscure information about remote locations. Fisher was determined to be the first state writer's project director to publish his state's guide, figuring that the first guide would receive the most review space in newspapers. His guide, published in January 1937, was the first from the Federal Writer's project to be published. Even Alsberg used it as a model for other state directors. Fisher saw the government as wasting resources in bureaucracy, and felt that the eastern United States saw the West as a source of wealth to be exploited. Fisher resigned from the Federal Writer's Project in 1939.