HAPPY SUMMER TO ALL!

It’s been an interesting month for us. As many of you saw on the evening news, Yellowstone National Park got about 40 inches of snow, then 2 inches of warm rain fell on top of it.  At one point, the Yellowstone River was flowing at 51,000 cubic feet per second. We had lots of roads washed away and several mountain towns around Yellowstone were flooded and isolated from the rest of the world. We are pretty much back to normal, but the cleanup, and rebuilding of roads and bridges, will take much longer. Some gates into the park are closed for the season. The mountains are still covered with snow. The good news is that all the moisture means the hills are covered with thick grasses and wildflowers. It must be a relief to the bison, elk, deer, and other wildlife.

We just returned from the Western Writers of America conference in Great Falls, Montana.

What a great trip!  We saw many old friends and made new ones. One of the highlights was a trip to nearby Fort Benton. They have a walking/driving tour of the river with excellent interpretive signs discussing the history of the town. We also spent a couple of days in the C.M. Russell museum in Great Falls studying the bison in Charlie Russell’s paintings. He was a master of wildlife anatomy.  Historical artists frequently painted animals they had never seen, basing their work on the images of other painters. As a result, there are some strange looking bison in paintings from the nineteenth century. Russell is the exception. Generally, his bison are beautifully accurate, especially in his later paintings.

Hello from rainy northern Wyoming! 

Like most of the West, we are in a severe drought, but it’s raining today. We can almost hear the trees and grass sighing in relief. Buffalo calves are being born, and their mother’s desperately need the high nutrition in spring grasses to feed those hungry newborns.

It’s been an exciting month for us.

Kathleen’s book, THIN MOON AND COLD MIST, about a female spy during the civil war who is hunted by a Union officer for her “war crimes” was just re-released by Wolfpack Publishing with a great new cover and has been the #1 bestseller in Civil War History on Amazon for several days now. It’s currently on sale for $0.99 cents, so if you’ve never read this civil war classic it’s a great time to do it. It’s been getting fantastic reviews.

Order THIN MOON AND COLD MIST

Also, Book 2 in the Rewilding Reports, THE ICE GHOST, comes out on May 17^th!  Publishers Weekly says, “Gear continues her inventive postapocalyptic trilogy featuring revived ancient hominds, with this jam-packed sequel to THE ICE LION.  …deep inside the massive mountain caves, perplexing relics and strange truths await…tense adventure will keep readers hooked.  Fans will eagerly await answers in the series conclusion.”  Book 3, THE ICE ORPHAN, comes out in November, 2022.

HAPPY SPRING!  Wyoming is finally coming out of the deep freeze. 

It’s such a pleasure to see green grass sprouting and aspens blooming.  We are so looking forward to getting outside into the sunshine again.   We’re sure our vitamin D needs a boost.

Speaking of sunshine, we just returned from the Tucson Festival of Books—which is a great book event. 

We spent two days at the Wolfpack Publishing booth.  Not only was the sunshine a treat, it was a joy to meet new friends and see old friends again.  And we had a chance to get to know our new publisher better.  Wolfpack is filled with really terrific people. 

Hello and Happy New Year! 

We send our best wishes and hope that 2022 brings you great happiness and good health. 

The first days of 2022 have been cold here in northern Wyoming.

We woke to -9 yesterday morning, and sub-zero temperatures are always interesting. The world goes quiet, the coyotes hide in their dens, bison, deer, and antelope huddle together for warmth. There are moments of great joy, though. Over the years, we have spent many hours watching bison play. When there’s deep cold, they stay warm by forming playgroups. They love to join together for a good run across the pasture, doing figure eights and leaping around, kicking up their heels, while puffs of frozen breath drift over their heads. We are always in awe when they shake the ice from their coats and the crystals hang in air glittering before gently settling to the ground.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO ALL!

It’s a beautiful autumn in northern Wyoming. The mountains that surround us are frosted with fresh snow, and the aspens are a wide vista of quaking golden leaves, interspersed with dark green pines and fir trees. The buffalo and deer are growing their winter coats like crazy, trying to get ready for the cold they know is coming. We have our heavy winter coats out, too, but haven’t needed them yet. That’s supposed to change next week when the new cold front rolls in.

We just returned from a balmy Key West where we celebrated our 39^th wedding anniversary, got sunburned, and ate WAAAY too many conch fritters and lobster pizzas. Had a grand time visiting the local museums and taking the Ghost and Graveyards Tour, which was fabulous.

Hello Everyone!

We hope you’ve had a great summer.  For the past month, we’ve been suffering through a lot of the wildfire smoke pall, as have most states in the western U.S., but it’s raining today here in Wyoming, so we are hoping for clear blue skies (at least for a short while) later today. 

It’s been an interesting summer for us. June was a little stunning. We received the Owen Wister Award for lifetime contributions to western literature, and were inducted into the Western Writers Hall of Fame (a bit disorienting to see our names next to Jack London’s and John Steinbeck’s names). In June we also received two 2021 International Book Awards. Michael’s book, UNRECONCILED, won for best science fiction novel, and Kathleen’s book, CRIES FROM THE LOST ISLAND, won for best Young Adult novel. Kathleen won for best science fiction novel a few years ago for MAZE MASTER, but we’ve never each won an IBA in the same year!  Too cool…