Melinda's Writing Pages: Pen to Paper

The Jesusita Fire in Santa Barbara, CA this year caused these two to take shelter together. The fawn is about 3 days old and the bobcat about 3 weeks.

They immediately bonded and snuggled together under a desk in the Santa Barbara County Dispatch Office for several hours.

Animal Planet is reporting the bobcat kitten was rescued near Arnold Schwarzenegger's ranch, where it was dehydrated and near death.

 http://animal.discovery.com/

They rescued the fawn during the wildfire. Although wild animals, especially of separate species, are never placed together due to regulations, in this emergency situation, they had no choice. During the mayhem of the fire, they were forced to put animals anywhere they could, since they had run out of crates large enough for the fawn. The kitten ran to the fawn, and it was instant bonding.

This just shows how everything is related to one another

Walk in peace and harmony,

Melinda

MariJo

I am so glad to have you here today.  You have a world of talent.  So, lets get started.

MariJo Moore, of Cherokee, Irish and Dutch ancestry is an author/ artist/ poet/ essayist/ lecturer/ editor/ anthologist/ publisher/ workshop presenter/ psychic/medium.

 Tell us something about you and your books

MariJo Moore of Cherokee/Irish/Dutch descent resides in the mountains of western NC.

Here is a list of books:

Crow Quotes, Desert Quotes, Spirit Voices of Bones, Tree Quotes, Red Woman With Backward Eyes and Other Stories, Confessions of a Madwoman (also on CD), The Diamond Doorknob, and its sequel When the Dead Dream (rENEGADE pLANETS pUBLISHING)

Feeding the Ancient Fires: A Collection of Writings by North Carolina American Indians (editor, Cross Roads Press)

The Ice Man, The First Fire, The Cherokee Little People, (children's books published by Rigby Education)

Bilingual edition (Dutch/English) Woestijnwoorden (Desert Words) translated by Annemarie Sauer, published by Uitgeverij Kramat, Belgium

Genocide of the Mind: New Writings by Native Americans (editor, Nations Books/Thunders Mouth Press NYC)

Eating Fire, Tasting Blood: Breaking the Great Silence of the American Indian Holocaust (editor, Thunders Mouth Press NYC),

Birthed From Scorched Hearts: Women Respond to War (editor, Fulcrum Publishing, Golden, CO).

 

Today I have Mary Connealy blogging about her upcoming book.  She is one of the fillies from the Petticoats and Pistols Blog.

I am thrilled she is here today, so Mary tell us about your book.

No holiday seems to have the same capacity for joy as Christmas.

That?s why I was so excited when Barbour Publishing let me write Cowboy Christmas.

Christmas stories, done right, have a richness that doesn?t come from things. And in the materialist world we live in, to touch that chord of the true meaning of Christmas can be tremendously powerful and fun all at the same time.

I think the reason I love stories like this is because I get as caught up in the commercial whirl as anyone and try hard to remember what it?s really all about. A baby in a manger. God becoming man. The birth that leads to the ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate act of love on the cross.

All great Christmas stories transcend materialism and reveal the true meaning of Christmas. Even non-Christian stories do this with a focus on family or peace but no where is it done better than in a Christian setting and I hope so much that I managed it in Cowboy Christmas.

I wanted a chance to do that with a Christmas book.

I wanted a character who?s heart grew three sizes that day.

I wanted a tiny voice saying, ?God bless us everyone.?

I wanted that moment when we all hope we?d be wise enough to abandon our sheep to the wolves and follow a star to where the Christ child lay.

I know, I know, it?s 100 degrees outside. Doesn?t matter, like everything else about Christmas, things start early and my book is releasing in September. So I?m talking about it now.

Cowboy Christmas

A beautiful songstress hiding from danger.

A wounded hearted cowboy who hates secrets.

An evil man obsessed with the wealth he can garner with that stunning voice.

The Rockies in the brutal cold of winter.

A family who takes in a damsel in distress regardless of their suspicions.

And one perfect chance for a man and woman to follow a star that will lead them to true love.

Cowboy Christmas

Leave a comment telling me your favorite Christmas tradition ? yes, in this heat! Just do it! That will get your name in the drawing for a signed copy of Cowboy Christmas.

And God Bless Us Everyone.

Mary thanks for being here today.  

Visit Mary's other links:

http://www.petticoatsandpistols.com

http://www.maryconnealy.com

http://www.mconnealy.blogspot.com

http://www.seekerville.blogspot.com

Walk in peace and harmony,

Melinda 

My blog/Website has been nominated for the following:

    Most Eclectic Taste Blog

    Best New Blog

    Best History/Historical Fiction Blog

    Best Romance Blog

Your vote will be greatly appreciated.

Please stop by:  www.bookbloggerappreciationweek.com   and vote for me

Walk in peace and harmony,

Melinda

Bill,

I want to thank your for your wisdom.  I am thankful also to you for permitting me to copy this onto my website.

Walk in peace and harmony,

Melinda

IndianLand Friday 14Aug09

Contents:

Naming pets

 Poem by Sondra Ball

 A funny story 

 A poem by Melinda Elmore 

 Smoking your own fish 

 Website Changes 

 Just folks, a photo of an Arapaho family

JUST A THOUGHT ABOUT NAMING PETS. . .

About to name your new cat Kitty? Think again -- surely an Indian?s pet deserves an Indian name! This PetNet website is a terrific resource, for it gives hundreds of possibles. Many are so good that children would be proud to have them: Moki is Hopi for deer; I wish my parents had known that!

http://www.pet-net.net/pet-names/native-american-names.htm

 ECHOES TRAVELING by Sondra Ball

echoes traveling

through the sap sweetened forest

axes stroking trees

(Sondra Ball publishes excellent poetry in her magazine Autumn Leaves at

   http://www.sondra.net/al

RELATIONS, a funny story

A small baby turtle was making its way slowly towards a tree.

When it reached it it began to climb, carefully and slowly. Reaching

the first branch, it carefully walked along it for a way, then turned

so it could look at the ground. Taking a deep breath, it jumped off,

landing on the ground with a plop. A few minutes later it picked

itself up, shook its head to clear it, and began the journey once again.

Two birds sitting higher up in the tree were looking in amazement at

the little turtle all this time until one turned to the other and said

sadly, "You know, we're going to have to tell him he's adopted."

(Richard Brown found this on the Postmans Corner)

DREAMCATCHER by Melinda Elmore (April 19, 2008)

The dreamcatcher is sacred

To all that believe

Hung over the bed

To catch all dreams

The web encircles

The circle to be

To catch bad dreams

To hold them so

No harm can be

The good dreams

Pass through

While you sleep

To bring good fortune

To all who believe

(Melinda Elmore is a prolific writer. More of her work may be found at her website.

www.melindaelmore.webs.com

SMOKED FISH for do-it-yourselfers

In the old days Indians smoked fish by building a small tepee out of skin or bark. They hung the fish inside at the top, kindled a smoky fire at the bottom, and let time do its work. Anyone can do the same today ? just use a heavy cloth for covering.

Give the fish extra flavor. Clean and rinse them, then rub them inside and out with salt, maple syrup, pepper, and bay leaf. Let them dry for an hour before smoking them.

WEBSITE DEVELOPMENTS

This month the Tribe section of the Website has been improved and expanded.

http://web.me.com/bear_bark_mac/IndLdWbsite/TRIBE.html

ATTACHED PHOTOGRAPHS

A friend of mine pointed out that this Arapaho family could come from anyone?s family album. The husband is bored and looking away; the little boy is utterly miserable; only the mother, beautiful and serene, looks at the camera ? and patiently waits for the click, after which she can straighten everyone out.

--- --- --- ---

The Website http://web.me.com/bear_bark_mac/IndLdWbsite/HOME_.html

About The IndianLand Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/indianland

Email us at bear_bark@yahoo.com  (Bill Stubbs, editor)

Bill (Mattabesic)

IndianLand Publications

On August 14, 1982, President Ronald Reagan, declared this day "National Navajo Code Talkers Day."  All the proud Navajo Servicemen were honored by the President Reagan for their outstanding role they played in relaying messages that the Japanese could not decipher during World War II. 

I want to say "Thank you, Navajo Code Talkers for all you have done."

The proud and honored Navajo Code Talkers

Walk in peace and harmony.

Melinda

 I am proud to post this today.  The Crow Nation are proud as all should be.

I am honored to have Joe Medicine Crow on my website.  Thank you, wise elder, for all you have done.

Walk in peace and harmony,

Melinda

Joe Medicine Crow

Joseph Medicine Crow (October 27, 1913 - ) is a Crow historian and author. His writings on Native American history and reservation culture are considered seminal works, but he is probably best known for his writings and lectures concerning the Battle of Little Big Horn. He is the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Bronze Star, the Chevalier Légion d'honneur, and the Congressional Gold Medal and an enrolled member of the Crow Nation, or Crow Tribe of Indians.

Edward S. Curtis portrait of White Man Runs Him, c. 1908

Joe Medicine Crow was born near Lodge Grass on the Crow reservation in Montana. Joseph Medicine Crow is a cousin to Pauline Small, the first woman elected to the Crow Tribe of Indians. His step-grandfather, White Man Runs Him, was a scout for George Armstrong Custer and an eyewitness to the battle. He grew up hearing stories of the momentous event. The first member of his tribe to attend college, his graduate studies were interrupted by World War II.

World War II and becoming the last war chief of the Crow Tribe

Joe Medicine Crow joined the army, becoming a scout in the 103rd Infantry Division. Whenever he went into battle, he wore his war paint beneath his uniform and a sacred eagle feather beneath his helmet. Without realizing it, Medicine Crow completed all four task required to become a war chief. He touched a living enemy soldier and disarmed an enemy when he turned a corner and found himself face to face with a young German soldier:

"The collision knocked the German's weapon to the ground. Mr. Crow lowered his own weapon and the two fought hand-to-hand. In the end Mr. Crow got the best of the German, grabbing him by the neck and choking him. He was going to kill the German soldier on the spot when the man screamed out "momma." Mr. Crow then let him go."

He also led a successful war party and stole an enemy horse, making a midnight raid to steal the horses from a battalion of German officers (as he rode off, he sang a traditional Crow honor song.) He is the last member of the Crow tribe to become a war chief. Of his story, noted documentarian Ken Burns said, "The story of Joseph Medicine Crow is something I've wanted to tell for 20 years." Mr. Crow was interviewed and appeared in the 2007 Ken Burns PBS series The War, describing his World War II service.

Tribal Spokesman

After serving in the army, he returned to the Crow Agency. In 1948, he was appointed tribal historian and anthropologist. Now well into his 90s, he remains active writing and lecturing. In 1999, he addressed the United Nations. He is a frequent guest speaker at Little Bighorn College and the Little Big Horn Battlefield Museum and has appeared in several documentaries about the battle. A noted author, his books have included Crow Migration Story, Medicine Crow, the Handbook of the Crow Indians Law and Treaties, Crow Indian Buffalo Jump Techniques, and From the Heart of Crow Country. He also authored a children?s book entitled Brave Wolf and the Thunderbird

                                               A young Joe Medicine Crow

Education

He received a bachelor degree from Linfield College in 1938. He attended the University of Southern California, earning a master?s degree in anthropology in 1939. He was the first member of the Crow tribe to obtain a master?s degree. His thesis, The Effects of European Culture Contact upon the Economic, Social, and Religious Life of the Crow Indians, has become one of the most widely cited documents concerning Crow culture. He received an honorary doctorate from Rocky Mountain College in 1999. He received an honorary doctorate at USC in 2003.

Honors

On June 25, 2008, he received two military decorations, the Bronze Star and the Chevalier Legion d'honneur. On July 17, 2008, Senators Max Baucus, Jon Tester, and Mike Enzi, introduced a bill to award him the Congressional Gold Medal.

His book Counting Coup: Becoming a Crow Chief on the Reservation and Beyond, written about his life, was chosen by the National Council for the Social Studies as a "Notable Tradebook for Young People" in 2007.

Joe Medicine Crow will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom (the nation's highest civilian honor) from President Barack Obama on August 11, 2009.

Quotes

"As a member of the Crow Tribe, and as a professional researcher, I think I'm doing quite a nice job of telling the Crow Indian story in the proper ways"

"No one wins (in war). Both sides lose. The Indians, so called hostiles, won the battle of the day, but lost their way of life"

Crow Boy's Coat

Dr. Joe Medicine Crow

Crow Tribal Historian &

Author of Custer's Last Stand Reenactment Script

JOE MEDICINE CROW PH.D

"HIGH BIRD" - DAGAK BAKO

CROW TRIBAL HISTORIAN

GRANDSON OF CUSTER'S LAST SCOUT, WHITEMAN RUNS HIM

The reenactment in Hardin is a drama. Told as an Indian first-person narration, it is driven by a series of historical events leading to the climactic Battle of the Little Bighorn.

The script was derived from one written by Dr. Joe Medicine Crow, 89, Crow Tribal Historian and anthropologist.

Medicine Crow is the real deal as both an Indian warrior and a Custer dramatist. He tells a story about earning a Crow war honor nearly as great as counting coup. Near the close of World War II, Medicine Crow and another soldier helped their infantry company capture fleeing SS officers holed up at a farm by stealing the horses the Germans had been riding.

In 1939-40, while going to graduate school at the University of Southern California, he was recruited to work on the script of one of the defining movies of the Custer legend, "They Died With Their Boots On." Medicine Crow, who grew up near the battlefield, had long heard stories about it from his grandfather and other scouts who had worked for Custer and witnessed his end. Medicine Crow says he did not put a sufficiently glowing spin on Custer, though, and he was fired. "I said, 'Some day I'm going to write my own Custer production and tell it like it is.' "

In 1964, he got the chance. As part of the Montana Territorial Centennial celebration, the Crow Tribe directed him to do the re-enactment script that remains the foundation of Hardin's show.

One-hundred- and-twenty- seven years after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, reenactors here are still borrowing from that past to try and shape the future.

A goal attained

This reenactment strives to tell the story of the settlement of the West and the defining Battle of the Little Bighorn from an Indian perspective, Medicine Crow says he can still identify the moment he knew he was right to pursue such a goal back in 1964.

"I remember thinking, 'If I can put the audience on the west bank of the Little Big Horn River in the Indian camp and they see something coming to destroy them, I will have sent a message,' " he says.

He had written a scene in which Sitting Bull fell into a trance at a sun dance and woke with his famous prophesy of pony soldiers falling upside down into the Indian village.

"Henry Oaks was the actor at that time," Medicine Crow remembers. "He pitched forward, and I watched the audience. There was a little white boy, about 5 years old. He jumped up when Sitting Bull hit the dirt.

" 'Mama. Mama. What are we going to do now? Sitting Bull is dead.'

"His mother teared up, and I got a lump in my throat.

"For one psychological moment, I had made a white man an Indian." We are proud to have Joe Medicine Crow as our Living Historian and Author of the Script for the Reenactment. Joe has been ever so faithful to attend and lead us in Prayer. Joe is a very accomplished writer and historian.

Dr. Joe Medicine Crow

This photograph was taken at the

Little Big Horn Battle Field National Cemetery at the grave site of his Grandfather "White Man Runs Him."

Walking in Two Worlds

November 3, 2006

Joseph Medicine Crow, Counting Coup, in traditional dress.

 Photograph by Glen Swanson

Born on an Indian reservation but raised by grandparents who lived free, Joseph Medicine Crow has walked in both the Indian world and the white man?s world for 93 years.

One freezing winter day when Joseph Medicine Crow was just five or six years old, his grandfather woke him up and told him to run around the outside of the house without his shoes on. During a Montana winter, that meant deep snow and temperatures 40 degrees below zero (-40°C).

The next day he said, Run around twice,says Medicine Crow, chuckling. It might sound crazy, but there was a reason. He was training me to be a warrior!

Every day his grandfather asked him to run farther. And pretty soon Medicine Crow became tough enough to withstand the cold like warriors from the old days.

That training helped him become chief of the Crow tribe when he grew up. To qualify, a warrior must have the strength and know-how to carry out four dangerous, death-defying actions, a process called ?counting coup? (pronounced ?koo?). During World War II, while serving in the United States Army, Medicine Crow completed those acts of bravery?including stealing horses from the enemy.

He tells that exciting tale along with many others in the new National Geographic book, Counting Coup: Becoming a Crow Chief on the Reservation and Beyond. His stories are unusual because he grew up at a time of great change for the Crow people.

Medicine Crows grandparents taught him how Crow Indians lived before the U.S. government sent them to a reservation in 1884. Yet he lived on the reservation and learned about the modern white mans world as well.

Crow Mirror Case

Elder Wisdom

with Brian Bull

Arlie Neskahi:

There are many definitions of warriors and what they represent to the Crow Nation. It's a question that Crow elder and historian Joe Medicine Crow has examined for much of his 90 years, a lifetime which has spanned two world wars, conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, and the Mid East. Medicine Crow's own warrior legacy goes back to his grandfather, who served as one of Custer's scouts. In today's Elder Wisdom, Brian Bull presents Joe Medicine Crow and the warrior code of the Crow Nation.

Brian Bull:

Joseph Medicine Crow carries his tribal history with care and pride, like an ancient pipe. Once asked to be a consultant for Hollywood's 1942 Custer flick, "They Died With Their Boots On", Medicine Crow was let go for not propping up Custer's stature as a heroic figure. Instead, Medicine Crow would later draft a script for an annual June re-enactment which details the native perspective of the 1876 Battle of Little Big Horn. It has been a headliner event near Hardin, Montana for forty years.

Medicine Crow's current passion is the keeping of Crow tradition, which begins with a respect for the Land.

Joseph Medicine Crow:

A Crow chief said that you have come to my country, the Maker made it just right, and put it in exactly the right place and gave it to the Crow Indians. Then he said summertime, when it's hot down there, we come up here and where it's nice and cool and cold streams and grass green all the time for our horses. Then in the fall, when it's getting cold up here, we go down to the big rivers, Yellowstone, Missouri and there the grass is always high.

Then, in the spring, our women go up these creeks and the ravines and pick chokecherries, June Berries. Then, of course, there was always game - the buffalo, deer and a lot of game birds here, we call prairie chickens. And of course, there's fish, trout, all over all these mountain streams. But the Crows rather eat, ha, ha, buffalo than sit and fish, you know.

But they asked one chief in 1868, "Where's your land?"

And he said, "My land is where I set my tipi. I use 4 poles. One pole rests at the western foothills of Black Hills. One pole rests at the shores of the big lake in the mountains, Yellowstone Lake. One pole rests near the great falls of the Missouri River. And one pole rests at the junction of Yellowstone River and Missouri River. That's my land - huge area."

Bull:

Medicine Crow says his people have such a love for the land, that even the spirits of those long past yearn for it. He recalls a stranger's phone call that lead to a significant homecoming for a Crow Chief.

Medicine Crow:

One day I got a phone call. And this woman from Virginia said, "I've been having dreams of a Crow Indian chief try to tell me that he wants to go home. And, one time I asked him his name and he said, uh, Bachay-chay, Bachay-chay. Do you know what that means?"

There's a place in Wyoming called Meeteetse, supposed to mean Bachay-chay, referring to Sits in the Middle of the Land. His name Awe-Chualawaache. That's the Crow way of saying it.

So I said I'd check up Meeteetse. They gave me an idea that this place is someplace out here in Wyoming and Montana. So, I turn it over to our tribal chairperson, a woman.

So they got together and organized this search party. And they looked for his remains and they think they found it, and took it back to Crow Agency there, where he was buried with full ceremony. Got a nice headstone and has become a shrine there. He wanted to go home, so we took him home.

Bull:

Medicine Crow says his tribe pays a lot of respect to their chiefs. That's because of the honored role they have in Crow tribal history, beginning in matters of warfare. He says intertribal warfare among the Crows, Cheyenne, Lakota, and Blackfeet gave many opportunities to prove one's courage and skill.

Medicine Crow:

And the Crows, by having acquired the horse and the white man's guns, they started intertribal war. Where it started, it got bigger and bigger. And through military activities, Crow boys become chiefs, you know.

A warrior has to complete four dangerous war acts on a battlefield to become chiefs. But, one man is knocked off his horse on one side, he becomes a trophy, and the warriors on this side say that the Crows on this side want to go there and touch that man. The first man who goes up there and touch that fallen enemy with a coup stick or maybe a quirt... Don't hurt him, just go back. You get a war deed.

But that's a dangerous thing, because his buddies, his companions, are right there. They know that pretty soon the Crows are going to come, so they use him as a bait, you know. And maybe that man himself is just accidentally had fallen off his horse and his time's come, so he's loaded his 45-70 and waiting. (chuckles)

You must have a hand-to-hand encounter, fight with an enemy warrior and take his weapon away from him, you know, pistol, a knife, or tomahawk, or gun. Do that, you get a war deed.

And then, warriors organize a war party to go capture horses. Well, you go there into an enemy camp. And it's dangerous to get in there, you know. They have watch dogs and, night time, they have sentinels. Then the horses are pretty well guarded, staked right close to the owner's lodge. Good horses in there with a rope tied to his neck leading into the tipi tied to the owner's arm, you know. So during the night, the horse moves around and wakes him up. So if the Crow were cunning enough to slip in that well-guarded camp and come to one of those things, cut the rope off of that horse, take it away, you get a war deed.

Now, the last one, after you have completed a number of these dangerous requirements, the council of old retired chiefs would select you to lead a war party. So having completed those four, why, you become a chief. TRACK 4

Bull:

Joseph Medicine Crow knows what he's talking about. During World War II, he and another soldier helped their unit capture several S-S officers at a farm by sealing their horses.

Time and technology have changed the way wars are fought now. It's hard to find any soldier counting coup today when most operations now use air strikes, smart bombs, and land mines - devoid of the brutal intimacy of hand-to-hand combat.

But Medicine Crow asserts that bravery and cunning can still exist in today's warrior. It's a matter of heart and principle he tries to take in all his endeavors.

Music:

Gathering Spirits

John Huling

Spiritlands

Red Feather

Medicine Crow:

The word 'chief' is a white man's word. They called these men good men, good men. He's a good man, meaning he's brave enough to get a war deed.

Brian Bull is Assistant News Director for Wisconsin Public Radio, and is an enrolled member of the Nez Perce tribe. He lives with his wife, two kids, and three cats in Madison, Wisconsin.

Crow war chief to receive President's medal

A 95-year-old Crow Indian who went into battle wearing war paint beneath his World War II uniform and later emerged as an acclaimed Native American historian.

Joe Medicine Crow will receive the nation's highest civilian honor from President Obama on Aug. 12, along with Sen. Ted Kennedy, physicist Stephen Hawking and 13 others.

The president met Medicine Crow during a campaign stop last year when Obama, then a U.S. senator, was adopted as an honorary member of the Crow tribe

"I am humbled and honored," Medicine Crow said in a statement released by the Custer Battlefield Museum, where he sits on the board of directors. "I sang Senator Obama a praise song, and now I know the song worked."

In 1939, Medicine Crow became the first of his tribe to receive a master's degree, in anthropology. He is the oldest member of the Crow and the tribe's sole surviving war chief ? an honor bestowed for a series of accomplishments during World War II, including hand-to-hand combat with a German soldier whose life Medicine Crow spared.

After the war, he became tribal historian for the Crow and lectured extensively on the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Medicine Crow's grandfather served as a scout for the doomed forces of Gen. George Armstrong Custer.

Medicine Crow lives with his family in the remote southeastern Montana town of Lodge Grass. His wife died several months ago, his hearing has gone bad, and his eyesight is fading.

But Medicine Crow continues to lecture and remains "100 percent there, mentally," said Christopher Kortlander, the director of the Custer museum.

Kortlander plans to escort the medal winner to Washington next month and said he expects Medicine Crow to wear his war bonnet to the ceremony.

Medicine Crow's voice already should be familiar to many outside the region, as the narrator for American Indian exhibits in major museums across the country, Kortlander said.

Medicine Crow was nominated for the presidential medal by U.S. Sen. Jon Tester of Montana and former Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming.

Simpson, who first met Medicine Crow more than 60 years ago, said Thursday that there was "no mystery to how he was nominated."

"There's a spectacular background to what he's done ? his leadership and the war experiences and his love of people in the tribe," Simpson said.

At the Aug. 12 ceremony, he'll also be joined by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and other world-renowned figures.

"The list is long and it's powerful," said Tester. "It's pretty darned neat that somebody 95 years of age in Montana could be honored like this.

Crow Moccasins

Today I am proud to announce that I am a writer for the Essential Writers website.  My first post was today.  Please take a look:

http://essentialwriters.com/linda-broday-3308.htm

Walk in peace and harmony,

Melinda

Today, I am interviewing Linda Broday...  I have to say it is such a pleasure to have the chance to speak with such a talented author.  So please take a moment and leave a comment.

1. Tell us something about you and your books

I write western romance and all of my stories have been set in the West with the exception of one that never got published. I love a western setting. There's something about rugged cowboys and the women who love them that gets my imagination fired up. I sold my first book in 2002 to Dorchester Publishing. It was called ,Knight on the Texas Plains. My second one, The Cowboy Who Came Calling,followed a year later. And my third single title, Redemption, was a 2005 release. I quit writing for a little over a year when my husband passed away and am just now getting back into the game thanks to good friend and fellow writer, Jodi Thomas. She asked me to join her, Phyliss Miranda, and DeWanna Pace in two anthologies,Give Me a Texan and Give Me a Cowboy. I'm glad I said yes. The work on these anthologies has been the medicine I needed.

2. Whats your latest book about?

Texas Tempest, my story in Give Me a Cowboy, is the latest story I've written. It features a gun-for-hire cowboy and a woman rancher who's a five-time widow. Tempest LeDoux is bound and determined to find a man who won't up and die on her. The minute McKenna Smith rides into the Texas Panhandle town she has him pegged for husband number six. Only one problem with that. . .McKenna has other ideas. His plans don't include a pushy widow, even if she is the prettiest woman hes ever seen. But saying no to Tempest is harder than it looks. McKenna learns that there are worse things than settling down with the only woman who can make him mind his manners. Before its all said and done, Tempest has him wrapped around her finger and liking it.

3. Where do you get your information or ideas for your books?

I'm always amazed at the places I get my ideas. Sometimes its in the checkout line at the grocery store, sometimes its from a line in a song, and once it came from a commercial on TV. Movies are a wonderful place to get ideas. So are innocent conversations. I just never know when somethings going to strike my fancy.

4. What advice would you give to other aspiring authors about getting their work placed with a big publishing company?

Write the best story you can and trust your instincts. Even when it seems all you can get are rejections, keep hammering away. Perseverance definitely pays off. You should never ever give up. I got enough rejections to paper my wall before I finally sold. You just have to believe in yourself and keep writing.

5. Please give us a list of all of your books currently available.

The only ones currently available are the two anthologies,Give Me a Texan and Give Me a Cowboy.

Unfortunately, my three single titles are all out of print.

6. How long does it take you to do research on the books you write?

I never stop researching when I write a book. There are always a bunch of little things that come up as I write. I can't anticipate everything that I need to know when I first begin a story. I probably spend about ten hours or so on research after everything is added together. But, I love to research things. I always run across interesting tidbits that I can put into my story as I go. I love it when something jumps out and surprises me.

7. How do you give credit to any research you do?

Sometimes I write a note to the reader at the end of the book, especially if the research turns up neat information that seems totally made up in the story but is actually true. I want them to know it. And sometimes I give credit in the dedication if it goes to a specific person. My research comes from lots of different sources and I'm careful not to include too awfully much in my story. After all, its a piece of fiction meant to entertain, not a history book.

Well, Linda you have offered excellent advice. Thanks for being here.

You are a wonderful and dear friend.

Walk in peace and harmony,

Melinda 

On Tuesday, July 21, 2009  my book "Native Dreams" will be out for a year.  I want to thank all who has bought my book and for those who have not I hope you do soon.  I am working on the sequel to "Native Dreams."  I am also working on a Native American Mystery novel.  I will keep you informed of any updates as to when my books will be available.

Walk in peace and harmony,

Melinda