Greg Mortenson (charged)Jon Krakauer (accuser)Attorney General Steve Bullock (referee) It’s obviously a case of author-envy, a quest for publicity, and a desire to become Governor of Montana. The parties involved are snarling over "Three Cups of Tea" and the charity, Central Asian Institute based in Bozeman, Montana. "Three Cups of Tea" has sold 3 million copes since 2006. ...
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Montana is in the grip of its recurrent fight over abortion. The sides are evenly matched. Neither has any hope of winning. Stalemate and frustration is all anyone can hope for. As the fight is filling the media with innuendo and vitriol, I have been re-reading Genesis. A Jewish scholar suggested that Genesis gives a vivid description of the human soul. The soul and how it ...
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The year was 1970; the place Fairbanks, Alaska. Nixon was president and our troops would be in Viet Nam for another five years. Construction of the Alaska Pipeline was eminent and so was secession.I was never sure why I was invited to the party. Maybe because I worked for the University of Alaska. Or perhaps because my husband was brigade clerk for Ft. Wainwright and knew from day to day the ...
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Montana's big sky loves a big show. Today it produced mountain clouds. These spaceship swirls are formed by mountain tops and are common in our sky at all times of the year. The new twist is the circular rainbow. A rainbow in a cloud sometimes means it is quickly evaporating. But this is winter!
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What is strange? Deformed? And has a sweet tooth?I don't know the answer either, but I caugt a picture of it raiding the honeypot.Any ideas?
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On July 21, 2010, fourteen middle-aged women and one fearless man hiked to a place called Headquarters Pass, one of the places to enter the Bob Marshall Wilderness. I have a real yen to go into the wilderness, but so far I just skirt around the boundaries. We weren’t serious backpackers but several were serious about yoga. Half way up to the 7,000 ft pass we came to a pleasant pond in a ...
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THE SLAM
Love puts a damper on enjoying the game of Bridge. My partner and I could play competitively. Really, we are that good. But to please my tender-hearted Chris, we only spar with friends.
I do enjoy our games. Once a week, we clean the house and make a luscious dessert. I check the wine cabinet and inevitably run to the store for a better vintage.
Last night, the phone ...
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Rejection letters from a publisher can be curt and ego deflating. But the only way to get published is to find the company that sees your work as profitable. I took Red Room's advice and looked at my favorite books. Who published them? CanonGate Books Limited had published Margaret Atwood and President Obama. Well, I'd like to run in that crowd, so I found their submittal criteria and ...
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January 7, 2010
No wind. Temperatures below zero. Cloudless sky. Predawn. These are the conditions needed to capture "little brother" on camera. I stood in wait and saw the first hint of the column of light on the Eastern horizon. I was shaking with excitment and cold. The first ten photos where blurred. I braced myself and started again.
But now something new was happening. ...
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I feel like the miraculous is following me. In the past, the breathtaking ice pillars have happened once every five years near Hauser Lake outside Helena Montana. But now it's happened twice in a month and there's another week left. Is it just luck that I’m at the precise spot to have the sunlight reflected into my camera?
Maybe nature is providing a special Christmas delight for me and ...
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Out my dining room window are miles of pasture and rolling hills. Life is abundant. Horses, cattle, deer, coyote, fox, geese, gulls, ravens. A myriad of twittering birds and the rare elk.
Beyond the rolling hills are the Elkhorn Mountains. Young and restless volcanoes able to toss molten lava twenty miles and hit my house. The soil is littered with finger-like black rocks and the ...
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Today, my third book is in the computer. The trilogy: Five Years Lying, Mandie Faradin, and Hope's Herald begins in 2007 and ends in 2025. Since 2024, no one in North America heard the devastating diagnosis, "You have cancer." A work of fiction it is, but it doesn't have to be. Fiction is a slippery slope. As I've talked with agents and publishers, they have asked me to ...
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Saturday, June 20, 2009.Soon the tilt and orbit of Earth will take us to the turning point of the solstice. Since antiquity, this is a time of deep sorrow in the Middle East and profound religious outpouring. If you pile on top of that, a disputed Iranian election and a struggle for Kurdish autonomy, it is almost impossible to predict what will happen. We in the West know so little about the ...
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Saturday, June 20, 2009.Soon the tilt and orbit of Earth will take us to the turning point of the solstice. Since antiquity, this is a time of deep sorrow in the Middle East and profound religious outpouring. If you pile on top of that, a disputed Iranian election and a struggle for Kurdish autonomy, it is almost impossible to predict what will happen. We in the West know so little about the ...
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Why does an ebook need a cover? I've resisted creating a cover for the past year. I love my website logo which is a Montana Evening Primrose. Why shouldn't a logo be enough for e-published works.
But, I gave up my mini-protest. The cover for Five Years Lying is out. I'd love to hear any critism or suggestions.
You may understand my reluctance when you realize that Five Years Lying is the ...
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One of the interesting parts of writing a book is walking in the character's shoes. I did that in April when I backpacked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Two seventeen year old boys will make the trek in my third novel. I needed to know what they would see and how they would behave.
Now I am 65. But I learned that I was more likely to do better on the trail than a teenage boy. You know ...
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