Hello to Everyone! Yes, we are definitely in the “The Dog Days of Summer” here in Wyoming.
The star Sirius, known as the “Dog Star”, is the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major, or Big Dog. Ancient Greeks thought that Sirius’ brightness in the northern hemisphere made the world hotter and brought on madness. Hence, we get the term The Dog Days of Summer.
As we write over 300,000 acres of wildfires are scorching the eastern half of the state. Rain and cooler temperatures are on the way, though, so hopefully that will help all the firefighters from multiple states who are fighting the blazes.
Our big news is that we just got the cover for our upcoming short story anthology, SWITCHING GEARS, coming out in October.
We are excited! It’s called ‘switching’ gears because we alternate writing stories, Michael writes one and then Kathleen writes one. There are eight stories in the anthology, including two award-winning stories, Kathleen’s story, “No Quarter,” about the Alamo and Michael’s story, “Bad Choices,” set in the near future. We think this anthology will be a treat for our readers who wonder who writes which passages in our co-authored books. You will discover we have distinctly different writing voices and styles. That was actually fun for us to see. Wow, we really do have different voices!
Our next release on August 27th is BLOOD LIGHTNING, Part 6 of the Peacemaker’s Tale.
Remember that if you have the original book THE BROKEN LAND, you do not need to buy this book. There are minor changes throughout the new editions, so if you care to see how we have rewritten the original, you might find the new editions interesting. Otherwise, you already have this story!
On a personal note, we are planning a trip to Greece to do research for a new series we are thinking of writing. It’s always inspiring to walk through some of the most magnificent archaeology sites in the world and dream of who walked these same paths and what they might have been thinking as they gazed out across the vista. The challenge, of course, it trying to see through the modern architecture to imagine what vista they might have seen—a task that archaeologists routinely engage in.
UPCOMING EVENTS!
From October 10th through the 12th, we will be in Denver at the Women Writing the West conference where we are finalists for the Downing Journalism award for an article we wrote on bison genetics. That’s always a great conference. We are looking forward to it.
Then, Oct. 19-20, we will be in Fort Worth, Texas, for the Will Rogers Medallion Awards where Mike’s book, AFTER THE EAGLE HAS FALLEN, will receive a medallion award for best contemporary western novel, and his short story, “Bad Choices,” will receive a medallion award for best short fiction of the year:
ALSO! Our new website at gear-gear.com is almost done. We can’t wait for you to see the new look and style!
Enjoy these last warm days of summer. For all of you Game of Thrones fans… Winter is Coming.
Sending you our best wishes for a healthy and happy autumn,
Michael and Kathleen