New Releases - November 2016

Maria Ines
Anne Schroeder

An Indian girl born under Padre Serra’s cross at Mission San Miguel de Arcángel witnesses the political intrigue and greed of Spanish, Mexican and Yanqui invaders who plunder California, destroying everything she loves. A refugee in her own land during the Time of the Troubles, Maria Inés struggles to survive while she reclaims her family, her faith and her ancestral identity. A moving must-read for fans of the Old West and Native American history.

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Finding Your Tribe

by Anne Schroeder

The thought occurred to me while I gave my farewell speech as President of WWW—a speaker’s podium is a great spot for discovering your place in the world. I heard people laugh at the right places and it felt really good. But what I noticed about my talk was the way the phrase “I had found my tribe” resonated with those of you listening. I could tell by the smiles and nods that we have all found our tribe in this group of talented, spirited women and men.

Anne & part of her Tribe, Andrea Downing & Kelly Wurth ~All photos by Roni McFadden

There were a lot of times when the tribe notion occurred—and most were not what I expected them to be. Wendy Claus knocked me out with her humorous excerpt from her LAURA winning short story. She made me remember how good it feels to laugh. Erin Turner knitted a sock while we talked books and I appreciated how it felt to be included. Sleepy writers pushed purses aside at crowded breakfast tables at 7:00 AM and I felt like a member of the “in-crowd.” Roni McFadden took my photo and I felt valued.

David J. Langum, Sr., Patricia Ackerman and Ann Parker

 I love how we buy books from each other and wait to have them signed. I love how everyone groans over the fabulous chocolate cake and then only eats half. I love that every year when I return to the WWW Conference I feel less like a stranger and more like a sister returning to a family reunion. 

I love that some of us show up in jeans and boots fresh from the corral and others show up in high heels and skinny skirts. A room full of pilots or firefighters or yoga practitioners will usually look like what they are, but a room full of writers can look like, well, like us—unidentifiable, and filled with hope and creative energy. I attended a national RWA Conference in San Jose, CA in the early 90s and expected to see dazzling sex sirens dressed in slinky evening gowns. Instead, I saw more than a few overweight housewives with plain hair and no makeup inquiring about the next new romance trend. Some came to breakfast in their pajamas and nobody laughed. I loved that about them—sex-crazed women fascinated by ideas and words. Just like us.

So what makes WWW my tribe? I think it’s the way we all struggle for recognition for our regional books and novels. We share a fierce and undying love of the American West and this bonds us the same way it bonds teens at Comic-Con. At the WWW Conference I find writers who “get” me and whom I “get” without even knowing their name. Safety among friends; we get it that it doesn’t hurt to say “yes” when an opportunity shows itself. Nobody will laugh—unless it’s at the hilarious short story someone reads from the podium or the chocolate cake we stick in our pajama pockets to take back to our room.

Until next year, my friends.     

December Member News

Lots of possibilities to add to our last-minute Christmas shopping list! Congratulations!

NEW RELEASES

Susan Wittig Albert  A Wilder Rose

Brilliance Audio will bring out the audiobook edition of this historical novel, to be published at the same time (March 17, 2015) as the Lake Union reprint edition. The book tells the true story of the mother-daughter collaboration (Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane) that produced the Little House books.

Janet Jensen’s new release Gabriel's Daughters (Jolly Fish Press) has also won a silver award in religious fiction from Readers Favorites. The novel wrestles with issues of polygamy, homosexuality, and modernity through the lives of the large, loving, and polygamous Martin family. The story is told primarily through the eyes of Zina Martin, a young girl who, upon discovering she is impregnated by her "sterile" teacher—and will soon be married off to a man three times her age—escapes the enclosed polygamous town of Gabriel's Landing, Utah. Zina then embarks on a journey full of self-discovery, yet she can never completely escape the longing she has for her family and even the controversial and outdated lifestyle she once lived.

Leslee Breene “The Christmas Gift”, an Ebook short story for the holidays. In 1883, Miriam Cole travels to Denver at Christmas to deliver her orphaned baby nephew to her married sister. The sweetness of his touch upon her cheek makes her heart tighten. When the time comes, how will she ever let him go? “With both verve and delicacy, Ms. Breene reminds us that miracles are indeed possible.” ~ Jane Choate RWA author of Keeping Watch – Harlequin

Diane Gardner, OregonState Penitentiary (Arcadia Publishing)  As the only maximum-security prison in the state, the Oregon State Penitentiary (OSP) has housed some of the most violent criminals on the West Coast, including brutal serial killers Charley Panzram in 1915 and Jerry Brudos in 1969. Sixty men have been executed inside OSP. The prison was originally built in Portland in 1851 but moved to Salem 15 years later, after Oregon became a state. From that time forward, the Oregon State Penitentiary grew from 23 prisoners in 1866 to 1,912 by 1992. 

B J Scott The Rail Queen, fifth novel in his Tales of Strong Women series. This novel, set in 1884, tells the story of Montana schoolgirl Ryka Sundstrom's unquenchable dream to build her own railroad. Her struggle is interwoven with the blossoming of the American railroad as it knits together the east and west coasts in a brief glorious period when all things were possible, even for a teenager with an outlandish dream and the will to pursue it. bjscotthistoricals.wordpress.com, amazon.com createspace.com/5028104

Penny Sidoli The Intersection of Daydream and Driving Slow is a collection of short stories by, with the setting of the contemporary American West. The book is available on Amazon.com as either paperback or ebook.   “A collection of wildly original tales packed with descriptions of the broad landscape of the American West, and lively characters who jump off the page into your heart.” 

Patricia Grady Cox Chasm Creek A hangman's noose stands between Morgan Braddock and the family he loves. Esther Corbin clings to a marriage with a man who has abandoned her and their four children. Ruben Santiago scorns his native heritage after being kidnapped from the Navajos and raised in Mexico as a Roman Catholic. Three unlikely friends. Three lives based on lies. Until ghostly visitations and violent confrontations shatter their illusions, and each must find their place in the merciless Arizona Territory. Chasm Creek incorporates aspects of the Navajo Long Walk into a story of love, loss, and fates entwined.

AWARDS

Deanna Dickinson McCall Mustang Spring Stories and Poems  won Poetry Book of the Year at the annual Western Music Convention and Awards in Albuquerque NM. Mustang Springs is a book about the real people of the West. Their stories are told in poetry and prose that will make you laugh and cry. She also won the Georgie Sicking Award for an individual poem, “Cow Country Code.

Anne Schroeder's break-out novel, Cholama Moon, has been named favorite non-traditional Western novel in True West's List of Favorites for 2015. Cholama Moon is a gritty historical romance set in California's Central Coast.

Karen Casey-Fitzjerrel, ForgivingEffie Beck is a finalist for the 2014 EPIC Award for Historical fiction. In this Will Rogers Gold Medallion Award-winning work of fiction. Mike LeMay, a Federal Writers’ Project interviewer arrives in a small Texas town days before the town eccentric, Effie Beck, is reported missing. While conducting his interviews, Mike learns that the enigmatic, elderly Miss Effie has moved through the lives of the town’s populace "like brown smoke" after having suffered a harsh childhood under the discipline of a cruel father.

April Member News

Wow, so much talent in our organization! And it looks like WWW nearly "cleaned up" in the Colorado Book Awards. Congratulations to all!

New Releases

Anne Schroeder Cholama Moon (Oak Tree Press) 

A young girl grows to womanhood guided by a Salinan (Mission) Indian woman and a crippled cowhand as Anglo pioneers struggle to establish ranches in 1860's California earthquake country amid banditos, cultural differences and their own internal strife. 

 

Amy Hale Auker's short story "Quatro in the Late Afternoon" appears in Rough Country, an anthology of western stories. 

 

Amy Hale Auker also has two poems, "Lightening Up" and "See You at the Barn"  in the National Cowboy Anthology Celebrating 30 Years of Wrangling Words.

 

Diane Thomas The Buffalo Messenger  

In 1910, two Dakota girls get sick and run away from boarding school to find the buffalo messenger--a red cricket medallion that points toward miracles and healing. Running away causes a chain of events that culminate in a deadly encounter between the tribe and local whites. The book was inspired by the author’s family history and actual events.

Lucinda Stein Sanctuary: Family, Friends, and Strangers, a collection of stories 

Stein's eclectic anthology of contemporary and historical short fiction reveals that sanctuary can often be found with those closest to us and sometimes, even with strangers. Includes her 2011 LAURA Short Fiction Award winning story, "Sulfur Springs." Also available at  Barnes & Noble 

Alethea Williams, Walls for the Wind: 

When Kit Calhoun leaves New York City with a train car full of foundlings from the Immigrant Children’s Home, she has no clue she might end up as adoptive mother to four of them in rip-roaring Cheyenne, Wyoming.The first time handsome Patrick Kelley spies Kit in Julesburg, Colorado Territory, he wants her. But danger lurks, and they’re all forced to leave behind everything they knew to try and forge new lives in the raw American West. Also on Kindle and Nook

Susan Wittig Albert’s Death Come Quickly (China Bayles #22, Berkley Prime Crime) When China’s and Ruby’s friend Karen Prior is mugged in a mall parking lot and dies a few days later, China begins to suspect that her friend’s death was not a random assault. Karen was a filmmaker supervising a student documentary about the fifteen-year-old murder of a woman named Christine Morris and the acquittal of the man accused of the crime. Is it possible that the same person who killed Christine Morris targeted Karen?

Awards

Kayann Short, A Bushel’s Worth: An Ecobiography by Kayann Short was a finalist for the 2013 May Sarton Memoir Award. The Women's Memoir Award is named for May Sarton, distinguished American memoirist, poet, and novelist and is offered annually by the Story Circle Network, an international nonprofit association of women life-writers.

 

 

Andrea Jones, Between Urban and Wild, a collection of essays about life at the wildland-urban interface in Colorado, has been shortlisted in the Adult Nonfiction category of the Reading the West Award sponsored by the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association. The award is designed to promote books whose subject matter is set in the Association’s 12-state region.  

Pamela Nowak  CHANGES is a finalist in the Colorado BookAwards (genre fiction).

www.pamelanowak.com

 

Colorado Authors League Awards

Page Lambert’s short story "The Widow of Loreto" (published in Huffington Post's Featured Fifty) is an award finalist in the Colorado Authors' League 2013 literary competition. 

Susan J. Tweit’s blog “Choose Happiness. Love all Life” is a finalist for the Colorado Authors League Awards  for a series of essays about building a life after her husband Richard’s death.