Truckee Local Author Showcase

Will you be near Truckee or Tahoe's North Shore on March 21st?

Please stop by the Local Author Showcase, which will be held on Saturday, March 21, from 1-4 PM at the Truckee Community Arts Center, 10046 Church St., Truckee, CA.

The event is put on by the Truckee branch of the Nevada County Library system.

I'll be giving the keynote talk at 1 p.m.

From 1:30 or so until 4 p.m., you'll be able to browse a wide range of books at the author tables and meet over 20 local authors.

A brief glance at the titles show books running from novels to short stories to poetry to children's books to histories to guidebooks and more. You'll be able to get signed copies of many of them.

A great addition is a table featuring our local Truckee bookstore, Word After Word books.

I've done many such events over the years, and it's always a fun, worthwhile experience.

Admission is free. So please stop by.

Cold Sailing, But Gorgeous

A week ago we had a major windstorm. The meter at the top of Kirkwood registered a gust of 209 miles per hour. (Although one source doubted that and said the wind was probably only 189 mph. Oh, is that all!)

The next day the wind had subsided substantially, with gusts on the lake of 35 - 40 mph.

A sailor of my skill knows that is far too much wind to sail in.

Complicating the situation, the waves were very large. Combine that with ice-water, winter temps, and it makes for a dangerous sailing conditions.

But exciting!

There was a boat out on the lake, racing across the waves. It tacked back and forth, beating upwind, then running with the wind back toward shore, then starting over again.

What a thrill it must have been.

Next McKenna Is In The Pipeline

After what seems like a dozen rewrites, the next Owen McKenna mystery is now in the hands of my first editor. After she has scoured it with her eagle eye and caught 1000 mistakes and problems, I will do another rewrite and send it along to editor #2. The process repeats for editors # 3 and 4. After that final rewrite, it goes into the publication process.

Because I've been through this many times, I sorta kinda know what the most common questions are. I will attempt to answer them here.

Likely question #1: What is the title of this new novel?
     Answer: Sorry, but that hasn't been finalized yet. The working title is Owen McKenna #18.

Likely question #2: Is Spot in this book?
     Answer: Yes. In addition to strong roles for McKenna, Street, Blondie, and Diamond, Spot will be in the book Lots. A big role. A star performance. (Can you tell that I've gotten lots of comments from readers about Spot?...)

Likely question #3: What is this book about?
     Answer: A deadly secret haunts a family that has a house in Tahoe. The result is the kidnapping of a teenage boy.

Likely question #4: Really? Is that all you're going to say about what the book is about?
     Answer: Okay, I'll also say that the book has a literary thread that many readers will have fun with. A thread that goes back almost exactly 420 years.


Thanks for the questions! One more thing. Those of you who read this blog will be the first to know the final title, the first to see what the cover looks like, and the first to find out the book's publication date and where I'll be to sign a copy for you.

Skiers And Boarders, An Avalanche Dog May Save Your LIfe

In the old days, if you were at a ski resort and got caught up in an avalanche and buried, you could well have been out of luck.

Even if someone witnesses the slide and reports it, this photo shows what ski patrollers see when they look up at an avalanche slide: A big, long pile of disturbed snow with no indication of where you might be buried.

Avalanche Slide - Is someone under that snow?

In the old days, the ski patrollers would line up across the slope and all march up while they poked poles into the snow in hopes of hitting a buried person before the person died, smothered by the snow. Unfortunately, the average person buried in an avalanche doesn't make it more than 20 minutes or so.

Today, however, every Tahoe resort has avalanche dogs on staff. If a patroller who has a trained dog sends it up the slope in the picture, the dog has an uncanny ability to find anyone buried by simply sniffing for the scent of humans.

If you're buried in an avalanche, hope this girl is nearby and given the command to find you!

A trained avalanche dog trots across the residue slide, searching for a scent. If they find it, they race to its source and start digging in the snow.

There is no machine, no imagining device, and no rescue technique that can do what a dog can do.

One more way that dogs are amazing.

Here is an article on the SFGate website about avalanche dog training. Avalanche Dogs