ONLY SIX DAYS BEFORE THE RELEASE OF THE SECOND SECRET VIDEO TRAILER!

The reviews are still coming in and so far they have all been great. Check out the PRESS AND REVIEW link. Honestly, I am NOT paying these people to say all these nice things. Good grief, this latest review from Feathered Quill Book Reviews has just blown me away. I couldn't have come up with such a powerful review if I had tried.

I am just 6 days away from releasing the second video trailer. It is hard to keep it under wraps until April 1st, the date I had set to launch it, but at least now, that's not too far away. This latest reviewer said that she liked my wolf dog Ruby, who lived a grand long life for a big dog, but sadly Ruby is now gone. If she liked my white wolf dog, just wait until she sees my current "sled" dog, Lucy. I have a feeling an awful lot of people are going to love that little munchkin. I made Lucy her own web site (www.TheDoggieDiva.com), and even before her video has launched, I got a request this weekend from an enterprising fellow who wants to sell advertising on her site. I've checked out the doggie beds he sells on  www.dogbedswarehouse.com  and they are pretty cool. Lucy would certainly like his "princess canopy" bed. Who knows? Maybe Lucy will get her own career as a professional blogger.

I am all packed for the book tour. My suitcase has been loaded, and re-packed, and re-packed again. I have rarely anticipated a trip so much.

Hope to meet lots of lovely people on my book tour trip. If you want to schedule a Skpye with me for your book club, let me know.

Cheerio!

Check out the SECRET TREASURE link I have just loaded onto the web site and find out about the secret question embedded within the text that leads to a special little treasure. I wonder how long it will be before someone finds the right question and gets the treasure. I tried not to make it too easy or too hard, but with just the right amount of intrigue.

I recall a fantasy book some years ago that supposedly held clues about where a tiny gold and jewelled rabbit statue was burried. People read the book very carefully but no one found the clues that led to the burried treasure. It turns out that the author had made the "clues" too obtuse and despite many readers trying their hardest, no one ever got the clues and the treasure remained burried in the ground. Eventually, a dog sniffed out the little gold rabbit and dug it up in a park. When I found out what the "clues" were, I was disappointed because they weren't really clues after all. The author had made the burried rabbit impossible to find unless you had a dog's nose and sense of smell.

My goal was to make the clues to the secret question in my book possible to find. What is required is a careful reading and attention to detail. No special understanding of geology or any specific subject is required. All one needs is an attentive mind. 

Good luck and happy reading. I will be very pleased to award the little Eskimo cradle treasure to the clever reader who finds the secret question first. But I hope that other readers will also feel rewarded and that they have gained something just by having read the book.

Cheerio to all you intrepid treasure hunters out there!


 

As more reviews come in (all good so far -- check out the REVIEWS AND PRESS page on this website), we are preparing to launch the book's upcoming release with a fabulous 5-week US book tour. I have an amazing PR team with Katrina Pearson coordinating the book tour events, Mary Bisbe-Beek handling the local west coast publicity, and Maryglenn McCombs running the US nationwide long-lead and short-lead PR assisted by her amazing sheepdog Major.

With the book tour less than a month away, the schedule for those five weeks is filling up with a range of events and more being added each day. Here is the rough outline of the schedule at this point.

April 2, 2012 Arrive in SAN FRANCISCO. The first book signing/presentation will be held at The Booksmith on April 4th at 7:30 PM. The Booksmith in the heart of San Francisco's historic flower power counter-culture near the corner of Haight and Ashbury is one of America's most iconic bookstores. Here they have hosted world class authors and personalities, including Allen Ginsberg, Ray Bradbury, Niel Young, Annie Liebovitz, Gracie Slick, Nobel Prize winner poet Czeslaw Milosz, members of the Grateful Dead, and The Doors. What a great start for the book tour.

On April 9th the tour heads up to Seattle, then up to Bellingham on April 10 to Bellingham's Village Books (7 PM).  

From there the tour goes to Ketchikan for a presenatation at the biggest public meeting hall in town, the Ketchikan Public Lands Center on April 12th at 7 PM.

In Juneau I'll be speaking at Hearthside Books on April 15 from 1 - 3, followed with various speaking engagements that week at the University of Alaska's creative writing classes.

Since southeast Alaska is all about ocean-side communities, it makes sense that the tour takes to the water. On April 17th, I take the ferry up to Haines where I will be doing an event at 7 PM with Babbling Book in partnership with the Haines Library.

Then back to Juneau for more UA speaking engagements.

I will be in Anchorage from April 22, with engagements at UAA and at the UAA bookstore on April 23rd (5 - 7 pm).

On April 24th I will be at Fireside Books in Palmer 4 - 5:30 PM, then back down to Anchorage for a writer's craft talk later that evening sponsored by the fantastic 49Writers organization, to be held 7-9 PM April 24th at the Harvest Bread Co on the topic of writing memoir.

From Anchorage the tour becomes a road tour with bookings along the way to Fairbanks at various towns including Talkeetna (TBA). 

It is only right that the tour winds up in Fairbanks, where I spent so many unforgettable years. This homecoming grand finale leg of the tour in Fairbanks (April 26 - May 6th) will kick off with a UAF reception the university is kindly hosting for me at Rasmuson Library on April 27th (2 PM), followed by the annual UAF Author reception at 4 PM.  Other Fairbanks engagements include UAF classroom visits and oral history recording for the alumni association.  We are trying to fit in events in Ester and Healy during that week as well.

So, those are the towns and the dates, with more events being fit into those dates every day. I hope to see as many of you there at the events as can make it. 

They say you can never go home again. With this tour about to commence, I think that maybe you can.

Here's to coming home.

-Mary