Recent Entries in Author Blog
Finding Uri - the latest
Posted in Author Blog by Sandy Munro on June 18, 2011
This is turning out to be a very different sort of Father’s Day for me. I’m starting to get all these emails from friends and first buyers of Finding Uri. As you might suspect, lots of folks have a box of yellowed, musty letters in an attic or closet. I can only say to them—get them out and write it down. You’ll be surprised at where it takes you.
On the PR front, we had our first book signing yesterday at Two Old Hippies. Special thanks to the Hippies and the good friends that came down to visit. It was fun to be back in my old hangout, sitting around guitars, and seeing you guys. You may have even walked away with something that will add to your own Father’s Day celebration, but I’d be brash to say that.
Newman Communications is a media firm hired by People’s Press to promote nationally. I hear from them daily with schedules for radio interviews and blog opportunities. You can “live stream” most radio stations if you desire. Here are a few of the highlights coming up:
Father’s Day letter in Bob Brody’s LettersToMyKids.org. It’s my first homework assignment—writing a letter to my daughter that relates to Finding Uri.
Skype interview with Lianne Castelino, in Toronto is on-line at whereparentstalk.com
June 23 - 9:46am MST - 14 min live interview with Frankie Boyer on nationally syndicated Lifestyle Radio Network
June 28 – Noon interview with Dan Raviv on the “CBS News Roundup.” It will air on CBS affiliates nationwide.
June 30 – 9:10am MST interview on “Rick Crandall Show” on KEZW-FM in Denver
I won’t keep posting these PR events, unless they are so huge that I can’t contain myself. So far the PR stuff is fun. I’ll likely get tired of the interviews soon enough, but hey, for now I’m happy to have them. Thanks to People’s Press for believing in Finding Uri. As they know, it’s all about the stories.
“Flat-Out Terrific”
Posted in Author Blog by Mark Stevens on June 15, 2011
The “blurbs” are starting to come in. We’re within two months of the Aug. 9 release date and some upbeat commentary is already flowing in. It’s one thing to have early readers help evaluate your story and make suggestions, it’s another to say it’s “done” and give it to writers like Margaret Coel and ask for an endorsement. I thought Margaret might be a good person to read it because her Wind River Series of mysteries is also set in the West and, well, I met her at an event in 2009 and she couldn’t have been more encouraging and supportive. All that good stuff.
Margaret remembered me. When I wrote to her about Buried by the Roan, she wrote right back and offered to read it. Then it took another three months to produce an advance copy and she followed through with a beautiful quote:
“Buried by the Roan is flat-out terrific. Everything you expect from a first-rate mystery is here: Savvy sleuth—Allison Coil, hunting guide on-top-of-her-game—gorgeous Colorado mountain setting, gripping story where the pages practically turn themselves, and eloquent writing to boot. If you haven’t yet discovered Mark Stevens, this is your opportunity!”
That’s gold as far as I’m concerned. Margaret has a new book coming out in September: “The Perfect Suspect.” No doubt it will be on the New York Times best-seller list only because I’m going to buy a 1,000 copies to say “thanks, Margaret.” When you’re in my shoes, staring a long way up the sales charts in the ever-increasingly-difficult world of selling books, Margaret’s quote is a tremendous gift.
I’ve known John Hickenlooper since he was in the oil business. We met in 1983. His wife, Helen Thorpe, recently published a terrific book called “Just Like Us,” a non-fiction account of four high school girls, all with Mexican heritage, who are caught in the tangled world of immigration, green cards and the great national debate over this issue. Helen read Buried by the Roan and offered this comment: “I couldn’t put this book down! Great dramatic writing, fast-pace narrative, and I loved every minute I spent with Allison Coil.”
I love this quote from Stephen Singular (okay, I’m likely to love any positive quote). I especially like the approach he took: “Few male writers would dare to create a tough-minded protagonist like Allison Coil. Mark Stevens has brought this off and intimately succeeded at making her the heart of this tense environmental drama.”
I like that tough-minded aspect. I think of Allison as pretty tough and capable. She’s not over-the-top superwoman but she isn’t afraid of a challenge and extreme conditions. She faces a few rough situations in Buried by the Roan, including one nasty night in a snowstorm when she has to save herself and a sort-of “friend.” I’ll leave it at that. Anyway, Steve Singular is known for his non-fiction but he teaches writing and fiction and certainly knows his stuff. It was extremely generous of him to offer the blurb. I think developing any character is challenging, but I don’t think it’s impossible to write “across” gender. (I’ve given talks on this subject with my pal Bonnie Ramthun.)
I wrote and asked for a comment from Curt Wendelboe, who lives in Wyoming. He’s a member of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. I am a member, too. Being a member of RMFW has been a terrific help in my writing—you just can’t beat the networking, advice, instruction, inspiration. (What a bargain, at $45 a year.) Anyway, Curt (C.M. Wendelboe on the book jacket) has a nifty mystery out called “Death Along the Spirit Road,” which is set on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and features FBI special agent Manny Tanno, who returns to his roots to sort out a murder. Curt wrote: “Mark Stevens deftly leaves clues in our path that we miss at first, then slap our foreheads when we should have picked up on them. My forehead was flat by the time the killer was unveiled in the end. His depiction of the mountainous terrain of Colorado is even better than a tourist brochure, and made me want to visit his mystery’s setting. Just as soon as I finished the book.”
Now, Curt has been “blurbed” by the well-respected mystery writer Craig Johnson (another Wyoming writer), so doesn’t that mean Craig would like my stuff, too? I’d like to think so.
By the way, not everyone I asked said “sure, send a book.” Many said they were too busy. I completely understand. So, even more thanks to those who took the time to read “Buried by the Roan.”
News from Finding Uri - book signing too
Posted in Author Blog by Sandy Munro on June 11, 2011
A little news for the Finding Uri release — The first book signing event is Friday, June 17th at my old digs, which was once called “The Great Divide.” Now it’s “Two Old Hippies” and it will be fun for us to visit there. It begins at 4pm and goes until 5:30. C’mon down, to Monarch at Main, have few goodies with your wine, and visit.
The first seventy books have been sent out, and I’d like to thank those of you that ordered without the benefit of reader reviews. Granted the jacket blurbs are superlative. (We paid a lot of money to get those people to say those things.) Once you’ve read it, I hope you’ll comment here. We’re hoping to maintain a little discussion group as time goes on. In the PR realm, let’s just say that in the last week I’ve been learning about Skype interviews, written a blog essay for Bob Brody’s “LettersToMyKids.org”, and been a minor league interviewee on Erik Skarvan’s “Locals’ Show.”
Given the nature of the book, this is a pretty special Father’s Day for me, and I hope it is for you too. The two years I spent reading the letters, and writing about them, made me feel like a detective investigating my own emotions. Karen Chamberlain, my primary editor, told me that all family stories are important, and that they deserve to be told. This resonates more deeply with me now because I know, that by telling the stories, we make people live again.
Antler Dust - Four Years Later
Posted in Author Blog by Mark Stevens on June 1, 2011
Four years ago, in March, “Antler Dust” came out and I was fortunate to receive some good reviews. One thing I didn’t know then—something I didn’t really know—was that a book has a life. Every book has a life. Four years later, “Antler Dust” just drew a nice review by Jim Ament, a guy I met recently and who clearly has done a lot of reading. Check it out…look under “Recent Posts” at http://www.jamesrament.com/
“He also knows how to build tension and write a darn good mystery,” wrote Ament. (I’ll take it.)
But here’s the secret.
Don’t know if this is a dirty little secret or just a fact of life, but I’m amazed, after writing the sequel, that when I look back at “Antler Dust,” I’m seeing some clunky spots in the writing. Just sentences and paragraphs and images that could have been executed at a higher level.
They need work.
And the People’s Press folks, who are bringing out a paperback version of “Antler Dust,” are giving me the chance to clean it up. It will be the same story. It is the same story. That can’t change—the basic plot and the characters, all in place. But it’s the quality of the glue that ties it all together. Certain scenes, reading them now, are simply not as sharp and clear as they could have been. It’s true. It just….could have…been better.
Maybe no book is ever perfect.
Maybe every piece of writing is a work in progress.
Fracking
Posted in Author Blog by Mark Stevens on May 28, 2011
“Buried by the Roan” comes out Aug. 9, 2011. You can see the spiffy cover on this People’s Press web page and it’s already starting to pop up on Amazon and other sites, too. Feels like the next two months will go very fast, indeed.
People say: “what’s it about?” I tell them it’s a sequel to “Antler Dust,” which came out in 2007 and was a Denver Post best-seller. I tell them “Buried by the Roan” features the same female hunting guide, Allison Coil, and that it’s about, well, fracking.
Yes, fracking.
(Weird, isn’t it, how a word like that enters common lingo?) “Fracking” is shorthand for hydraulic fracturing.
It’s the process of injecting water deep underground to release natural gas, the natural gas we burn in your house and mine (unless you are off the grid) for all our natural gas needs.
Did I say water? Yes, water and chemicals…..lots of chemicals. A very secretive mix of chemicals that drilling firms are hesitant to name. Hesitant? How about adamantly determined to keep secret.
Go rent the documentary “Gasland” if you want to see water from a kitchen faucet being lit on fire ... yes, water from a kitchen faucet being lit on fire.
So what’s “Buried by the Roan” about? It’s about fracturing the earth, fracturing communities and it’s about the gorgeous photo on the cover of the book…a mountain lake, clouds descending, trouble ahead. I also think it’s also very much about the future of Western Colorado.
The All New Woody Creek People’s Press Blogosphere
Posted in Author Blog by Sandy Munro on May 27, 2011
Could I actually be the first one to leave a comment at the brand new People’s Press website? I guess it’s fitting, as my book Finding Uri, was shipped last week and arrived today. As a new author, with my first book, I can only say that I’m honored. I sent my first chapter to George on a Saturday more than two years ago, and he called me on Sunday morning saying, “Sandy, I want to publish your book.” That’s what you call lighting the fire.
Now the day has come, and I can only think of the fine family People’s Press has become. I’ve felt nothing but loving support from the whole team … so thanks George, Catherine, Mirte, and also
Craig Wheeless and Jen at Rainy Day Designs. I’m getting a pretty good feeling for the amount of time you all are putting in, and you’ve made me feel like I’m part of a grand adventure. Also I’m so grateful to Karen Chamberlain, who was my primary editor. As it says in my “Acknowledgements”, she will always be with me when I sit down to write.
Let the Woody Creek blogosphere begin…
The Aspen Wallposters
Posted in Author Blog by DJ Watkins on May 27, 2011
The wallposter is a bi-weekly publication of the Aspen Wallposter Corporation, Box 1561, Aspen, Colorado. Subscription rates will be announced in issue No. 2. A very limited amount of advertising will be accepted as of issue No. 3 The Wallposter is not a newspaper – at least not for now. But the sneaky demise of the Illusrated News leaves Aspen with only one editorial voice (in print & on the air) and politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. We intend to fill that vacuum. We also intend to make some people wish that wolves had stolen them from their cradles. The only criteria for art and editorial content will be quality- Any nazi greedhead with the money to hire a good ghostwriter is welcome to submit his screeds for publication. Dull, and/or illiterate bullshit will be rejected out of hand. Our space is limited and we have no rewrite staff to cope with gibberish or garbled swill. We’ll make every effort, however, to publish any relevant, coherent and even outrageous counterpoint to our own clearly biased opinions. So – in the now-famous words of Spiro T. Agnew – “Let the Hundred Flowers Bloom”
-The Editors (Tom Benton and Hunter Thompson)
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