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Dear All: Every year when we attend the SAA it’s always a shot in the arm, a kick in the… well, you know. Call it a great time that massages the intellectual, the spiritual, and provides a motivational high. The meetings also feed the need for companionship–the kind that comes from sitting with old friends and discussing the latest archaeological research, fascinating new finds, and where the discipline is headed. The only thing missing was Kathy. She was back at the ranch wiping puppy pee off chair legs and cleaning carpets. Oh, and finishing the final revisions to the third book in the Iroquois quartet, THE BROKEN LAND, A People of the Longhouse Novel. Mike, however, took in some marvelous sessions on prehistoric Southwestern agriculture, on Great Basin paleoarchic, on buried Chaco-era sites in the San Juan River bottoms, and on burials in the Midwest. In all he came home with thirty some pages of notes. All of which had to be reread for Kathy. Jake, the puppy, started out listening intently, then went to sleep. Perhaps not all individuals get a high out of uncalibrated radiocarbon dates? But then, not all of us pee on chair legs, either. Mike’s forum on archaeological fiction was a blast! Initially worried that the 6:00 pm time frame was a killer (most archaeologists at these meetings eat about then) we had eighty some people in the sesssion. Sponsored by Linda Scott Cummings of Paleoresearch Associates, we had thoughtful comments by Dr. David Anderson, Dr. John Whittaker, Dr. Laura Scheiber, and even SAA president, Dr. Meg Conkey. David, bless you for fixing Mike’s slides into your Powerpoint presentation. Buying you dinner and beer was well worth it! And the companionship was also great. We’re used to having our own work reviewed. Fans vent or rave on Amazon and B&N.com, and we suffer the scrutiny of New York Journal Review of Books, Library Journal, Publisher’s Weekly and other industry stalwarts. We don’t always get an analysis of the genre from professional archaeologists. Having the input of so many thoughtful archaeologists created an opportunity to look at fiction in prehistory through a different lens. As we all know, changing lens changes perspectives. By the end of the forum, the consensus was that more archaeologists need to be writing fiction. The biggest problem is that most novelists are not archaeologists, and conversely, those archaeologists attempting fiction, are not novelists. Either way you approach the task involves research and hard work. And the single most salient observation in the session was made by Dr. Conkey: “Good prehistoric fiction asks the same kinds of questions that good archaeology does.” We can’t wait for next year!

March 28, 2011 Ah, life can be so interesting… While I’m finishing final revisions to the third book in the People of the Longhouse saga, THE BROKEN LAND, Mike is off to the Society for American Archaeology meetings to present a paper and moderate a panel. When he left this morning, his puppy, Jake, stood at my side to watch the truck head off down the road. Over the next hour, Jake had to go out five times to sniff Mike’s tire tracks, and when I finally forced him to come in out of the snow, he charged into Mike’s office and howled, listened for a response, then howled again at the top of his lungs. When all of that failed, Jake moped his way into the den and demonstrated his general malaise by peeing on a chair leg. He’s fine now, sleeping at my feet as I write, but it’s taken a lot of treats to convince him the world has not ended. At this rate, he will have gained three pounds by the time Mike returns.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! It’s a sunny day here in northern Wyoming. We’ll be celebrating the driving of the snakes out of Ireland by making bison Irish stew and chocolate Guinness cake. It’s the first time we’ve made this cake, the recipe was forwarded by our friend, Charles Curley, so we may need the luck of the Irish to get it right. Fortunately it only requires one cup of Guinness, which means we can soothe our sorrows if it falls flat. THE DAWN COUNTRY, which was released on Tuesday, is getting wonderful on-line reviews, and we especially want to thank all the bloggers who have read the book. We know how much time it takes to read a book and provide a thoughtful review. We’re especially grateful to: www.nyjournalofbooks.com/review/dawn-country www.genregoroundreviews.blogspot.com/2011/01/dawn-country-w-michael-gear www.bythebookreviews.blogspot.com/2011/03/dawn-country-people-of-the-longhouse-novel http://bibliophilegirl.blogspot.com/2011/03/blog-tour-review-dawn-country http://www.daemonbooks.com/2011/03/16/the-dawn-country-by-kathleen-oneal-and-w-m-gear www.examiner.com/book-in-san-jose/review-the-dawn-country-by-kathleen-o-neal– And Jon Land, if you’re listening out there, we owe you beer for the rest of your life. Thank you. We sincerely appreciate your kind words about The Dawn Country. Mike and Kathleen

Greetings! I am Black Shell, of the Chief Clan, of the Chicaza People. Yes, many of your have read my earlier entries…and I’m loose again. I still have to sneak out of the computer when Mike and Kathy aren’t looking. Currently they have me preparing to meet that spit-licking hoobuk wooksa de Soto in the third book. As to how that comes out? I can hardly wait. Maybe I’ll finally get my chance to deal with that two-footed maggot. Just so you know, Pearl Hand is fine. She has considered filtering her way out of the writing computer and making an entry here. (I think she’s smarter than I am and probably more articulate.) What worries her is that she’d have to write this in present tense and italics and include a flashback. What? Oh, you don’t get that “flashback” thing? Read COMING OF THE STORM and you’ll know what I’m talking about. I’m making a plea: Please stop sending all those Facebook requests asking when FIRE THE SKY is coming out. It’s here! On the shelves as of the 15th of February! The story picks up right after COMING OF THE STORM and you can come along as Pearl Hand, Blood Thorn, the dogs, and I take the fight to de Soto and his Kristianos. We have a pretty good run at him in Apalachee, which is where Tallahassee, Florida, is today. Then it’s off to Georgia, and into the Carolinas, where we finally have a chance to stop the monster. But then, that was before we knew about Cofitachequi’s troubles. Never heard of Cofitachequi? It’s pronounced Co-feeta-check-ee. What if I told you it was one of the largest nations in North America in the 1500s and covered most of North Carolina. The cities were big for the time, and tens of thousands of people were ruled by Sun Chiefs who lived in the city of Telemico. Didn’t know that, huh? That’s one of the great things about reading FIRE THE SKY. You’re going to hear about many large nations that existed here, in our country, and have been forgotten. Coosa, where Pearl Hand and I will go next, may have ruled between 50 and 70 thousand people in a nation that stretched from the Blue Ridge down the Tennessee River, into Georgia, and all the way east to Alabama. Meanwhile, Pearl Hand and I continue in our attempts to thwart de Soto. Unfortunately, he has figured out that we’re a civilized people, bound by rules for peaceful engagement and indicated by the presentation of a white arrow. De Soto, however, is a liar and a cheat with no sense of honor. And throughout FIRE THE SKY he’s using the white arrow against us. All the way to Mabila, where… Oh, I guess I’d better not say. After all, I’m a canny trader by training, right? The ending of FIRE THE SKY is, to put it mildly, intense. And part of the Power of trade is to ensure that you are delighted and awed when you finally read it. I do hope that you enjoy the story. As you’ll see, Pearl Hand and I had a tough time making it to the end. At the same time, please join us in hoping that Borders Books survives through the next few weeks. They’ve sold thousands of copies of COMING OF THE STORM, helping to place Pearl Hand’s and my story in the hands of so many readers. To the Borders employees who wept when Antonio killed Fetch, thank you, you get it. So, honored readers, if you get a chance to buy your copy from Borders during this time of trial, they would really appreciate it. All the best, Black Shell

From the beginning of our academic careers, we have been fascinated by the “contact” period. Many of our novels, including THIS WIDOWED LAND, THE MORNING RIVER, and COYOTE SUMMER deal with this critical meeting of European and Native cultures. At the same time, we learned something very important from an interview by television and movie producer, Joss Whedon. He explained how, as a challenge to his creativity, he periodically had to “take something away.” The moment of epiphany for him was when he did the Buffy episode without dialog. It earned him an Emmy nomination. We had written all of our novels in third person. What we “took away” was the power to be inside all of the characters’ heads. By writing COMING OF THE STORM in first person–just telling it from Black Shell’s perspective with a couple of italicized flashbacks from Pearl Hand’s. A small percentage of our readers found it disconcerting, but most reviews in the public forum were four or five star. See the comments at Amazon. With FIRE THE SKY we continued to work in first person. And, yes, it is challenging. It’s like writing with one hand tied behind your back, and only two fingers to type with. Not only that, but the structure of the story itself is problematic. That bastard de Soto travels constantly in the second book, so characters are constantly changing, as is the scenery and background Native culture. In short, from the author’s perspective, FIRE THE SKY was filled with structural challenges that had to be overcome. How did we do? Our charming publicist at Simon & Schuster, Melissa Gramstad, duely sent the review copies to the usual suspects. Among these is Publisher’s Weekly. Of all the reviews, PW’s is the most prestigious. It’s read by every bookstore owner, and all the buyers for Barnes & Noble, Borders, Wal Mart, Books a Million, Hastings, and, well, anyone who’s anyone in the industry. They give out very few starred reviews. We’ve only had one before, for PEOPLE OF THE RIVER. FIRE THE SKY is our second. For those of you who’ve read COMING OF THE STORM and have been waiting patiently for FIRE THE SKY, we can tell you that from the standpoint of the critics, you won’t be disappointed. Black Shell, Pearl Hand, and the dogs are so delighted! FIRE THE SKY should be in bookstores by February 15. Or you can preorder with your favorite bookseller.