Monthly Archives: January 2012

Bright and early Saturday morning we’ll be heading to Billings for our 2:00 pm signing at the Barnes & Nobel on 24th Street. While we’re there we’ll give a lecture on the impacts the League of the Iroquois had on our modern world. Those of you reading the PEOPLE OF THE LONGHOUSE series which also includes DAWN COUNTRY and the latest release, BROKEN LAND have already read the nonfiction forwards and understand the impact that Native American notions of one person, one vote, referendum and recall, even the concept of confederations, of “united states” had on the formation of our society. Europeans arriving on the American shores were indoctrinated to believe in a concept called the “Divine Right” of kings. Supported, obviously, by the church, the belief was that God granted rulership to specific individuals and families. There was no way to challenge God’s will in the matter, unless you bought that right through the church. It was the natural order of things, and all power flowed down from the throne. Until Europeans stumbled across the Americas where the indigneous nations for the most part hadn’t heard of any such system. The shock waves rolled back across the seas, upsetting, well, just about everyone. After all, if the entire world didn’t run the way Europe did, why not? And what else might kings and the church have gotten wrong? How could they have missed an entire half of the globe? Once people started to ask questions, folks like Martin Luther posted his theses, and revolutions were born. Nor did it stop there. As late at the 1860s a young political scientist named Karl Marx picked up a copy of Louis Henry Morgan’s LEAGUE OF THE IROQUOIS and read with amazement how wealth was redistributed among the Iroquois. This notion of redistribution of resources was mixed with his historical thesis and economics in a book called DAS KAPITAL. And look where that ended up! So, yes, there will be four books in the PEOPLE OF THE LONGHOUSE series. A mini series within a series. Why? Because the subject is worthy of it.

We’ve got the contract with our agent’s notes printed out and will be reviewing it to have older titles up on Kindle. A few details remain to be worked out, but unless some major obstacle falls in our path, they should be up and running by the end of February. Note: This does not include any titles published by Tor/Forge. Those are encompassed by the on-going negotiations with Macmillan Publishing. With a lot of fingers in the pie, we’re still working out stubby little details. We hope to have that brought to a conclusion by the the first of February. Assuming, that is, that all the parties actually work on it. Moss grows on rocks faster than this deal proceeds!

We’re on our way to the National Bison Association meetings in Denver, Colorado. Kathleen being a Western Bison Association board member, we’re obligated to attend the Thursday board meeting where Kathy will be brilliant, and Michael will try to keep his mouth shut. The thrust of this years meeting is petitioning the US Fish and Wildlife to delist Woods bison from the Endangered Species Act. Why? Recent genetic research has shown woods bison and plains bison to be the same crittur. Woods bison, living where they do in Northern Alberta look slightly different than Plains bison living in, say, Oklahoma. These are what we call phenotypic differences. And, amazingly, if you move plains bison from Oklahoma to northern Alberta, after about 5 or six generations, guess what? Yep. The begin to look a lot like “woods” bison. It all makes sense if you think about it. Prior to the arrival of the white guys, buffalo ranged all over North America, clear up into Alaska. And, believe us, those four feet work just fine. From the Peace River down to the Gulf of Mexico there were no barriers to gene flow–mating–between moving populations of buffalo. Yukon buffalo mated with Alberta buffalo who mated with Montana, buffalo and so on down to Texas. It was only when biologists in the early Twentieth Century began to study them, that a distinction was made because, well, buffalo in Alberta look different from buffalo in Texas. So why should the US Fish and Wildlife manage woods bison differently from their plains cousins? We’re hoping that the National Bison Association will join the Western in our petetion to have the woods buffalo delisted.

Greetings All: Just a word on the status of our ebooks. We received an email from our agent that Amazon Kindle had finished converting eight of our old titles, and was about to be complete three more, including the Spider trilogy, Forbidden Borders, and Kathy’s Light trilogy, written under Kathleen M. O’Neal. Amazon says they should be available by the end of the month. But then this all takes much longer than it should. Smart money say’s they’ll be available by the end of February! Note: The above titles will be on Amazon Kindle only. Currently we do not have a contract with Nook, though our agent is in negotiations with them. Meanwhile, the Macmillan titles, including the PEOPLE books remain in lawyer limbo, while we await a counter-offer from the Macmillan legal office. We are hoping to finally have this resolved before our trip to New York in February. Until this happens, BROKEN LAND will not be available on any e format. We’re working on it, guys. Meanwhile, be well!

As of January 3, copies of BROKEN LAND are being placed on bookstore shelves across the country! This is the sequel to DAWN COUNTRY, and is the third book in the PEOPLE OF THE LONGHOUSE series! Follow Odion, Wrass, Baji and Tutelo as they enter their adult lives. But mad Atotarho has other plans for the Iroquois, and he will pursue them no matter the cost to his daughter, her friends, and his people! And, just so you know, the fourth and final book, THE BLACK SUN is finished and will be published October of this year!