It always amazes me when something I’ve written sends a postcard home. This week, I found two such postcards rattling about in my empty post box. Writing is an odd craft, done in silence and alone. Once one shepherds a piece out the door, one rarely or more likely, never hears from it again. It’s an amazement then, when words lying flat in a closed book, suddenly, when the spine is cracked, pierce a neuron in another brain far removed in time and space. Somewhere, another mind is sparked, and a new creation leapfrogs into being. I am deeply honored to have even the slightest influence on these new creations.
An excerpt from Stephan Legault’s latest book’s acknowledgements: “I wish to thank Greer Chesher for introducing me both to the ecology of the American Southwest, and to the mystery genre, when I worked for her as a volunteer at Grand Canyon National Park in 1993–94. Greer also read early drafts of my never-to-be-published attempts at fiction and gently pointed out that these stories would benefit from a plot.”
That really cracked me up. I did say that, and Stephan actually took my advice! I read the book though it isn’t available until September (I got to be the Lone Blurber!). And it’s good! It has a complex plot that keeps you turning pages. Be sure to get a copy when it comes out–especially if you like the desert southwest. Here’s my blurb:
In The Slickrock Paradox, the mysterious Southwest is much more than setting; the desert’s fully drawn character holds its own with the book’s compelling personalities and captivating story. The realistic plot makes the book timely—such nefarious undertakings could be, and are, happening just beyond our knowing. Greer K. Chesher, Author, Heart of the Desert Wild: Grand Staircase—Escalante National Monument, winner of the Utah Book Award for Nonfiction
and an excerpt from Steph’s blog about the book:
Countdown to release of The Slickrock Paradox
In a few short months The Slickrock Paradox will be released by TouchWood Editions. Set in the American Southwest, Slickrock tells the story of Silas Pearson, an English professor searching for his missing wife among canyon country’s monuments, grottos, and reefs. Penelope vanished more than three years before while working on a clandestine conservation project to protect what she called “Ed Abbey Country.” She went backpacking near Moab, Utah, and never returned. Now Silas is searching every corner of the great American desert trying to find her. When he discovers a body in a remote corner of Arches National Park he thinks his search is over, but it’s only just begun.
The Slickrock Paradox is the first in a series of novels inspired by the iconic landscape of the Arches, Canyonlands, Grand Canyon, and Escalante regions of Utah and Arizona, as well as my life-long love of the hard-boiled writing of Edward Abbey. Black Sun Descending and The Same River Twice will be published in 2014 and 2015.
More on my second postcard in the next post.
The Occasional Chair 