Montana Blues traveling

A pretty scene for this author — my new novel, Montana Blues, has made it to North Michigan reservoir in Colorado … thank you, Jodi Peterson.

A nice surprise — my new novel showed up in the hands of Tom Zoellner during Tom’s August 9 online talk for the Border Community Alliance. Tom is based in the L.A. area, and I was watching his talk on my computer, enjoying his remarks about his eighth book, Rim to River: Looking into the Heart of Arizona. Suddenly he’s recommending my novel to the audience, saying that Montana Blues is “really outstanding fiction … a fast-moving, suspenseful story.” Tom is an Editor-at-Large for the Los Angeles Review of Books, along with teaching as an English prof at Chapman University. Kindness is one of his traits. Thanks, Tom.

My new novel cools off by the Colorado River, just upstream from the confluence with the Gunnison River — thank you, Ted Moorman, for venturing out there in the mid-August heat.

Cool green intrigue, Camano Island State Park, northwest of Seattle — another August trip for my new novel, thanks to Darla Hoff.

In August, my new novel climbed to roughly 8,000-feet elevation in the cool forest on Mt. Lemmon, the biggest peak looming over Tucson. Thank you, Doug Biggers, a longtime leader of Tucson journalism (Doug was the original editor and publisher of the Tucson Weekly and the Edible Baja Arizona magazine).

In late July, Margaret Regan made my new novel another beach read along the Jersey Shore, at Brigantine Beach. Margaret is a wonderful writer. Her career includes two heartfelt pro-immigrant books and a stint as “a French editor for TV Guide.”

Also in July, history prof Kevin Gosner read my new novel while he was traveling to and from the East Coast (he shot this photo during a layover in the Dallas-Forth Worth airport) — thanks, Kevin!

In July, Montana Blues showed up in the green hills of Vermont, thanks to John Karath.

In mid-June, Montana Blues traveled to the immense Great Plains grasslands. I grew up on Illinois prairie, next to a great swamp that got me interested in the wild at a young age. Some scenes in the novel are on Montana’s grasslands. Thank you, Colorado friend Jim Horvath, for taking the novel out on the grass during a road trip.

In June, Montana Blues made it to a rightwing crime scene mentioned in the novel, thanks to my kids.