Three members of Anthem Authors have book blubs listed in the August 2016 issue of Roundup Magazine, the official publication of Western Writers of America. Anthem Authors is a writing and critique group comprised, at the present, of thirty-three residents of Sun City Anthem in Henderson, Nevada.
Donna Mabry’s novel Kimimela, R. Michael Wilson’s non-fiction book Train Robbery in North America, and my own novel Bear Claws, The Iron Horse Chronicles–Book Two, have information in the magazine listing the publisher and providing a short synopsis of the contents.
The members of Anthem Authors are prolific writers and many have published their work; but Donna, Bob, and I, also belonging to Western Writers of America, devote much of our writing to the western genre. You will find our books at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
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In Bear Claws, Will also sees the “Lone Tree” around which the UP curved the tracks in order not to have to cut down the only tree growing on the windswept summit. The railroad no longer follows the original route that Will Braddock knew. The Dale Creek Bridge is gone. The “hell on wheels” town of Sherman Summit no longer exists. The limber pine, which could be as old as 2,000 years, does exist and stands between the westbound and eastbound lanes of I-80. Stopping at this turnoff on the Interstate, one gets a feel for what Will and his friends experienced when the trains sped westward at forty miles per hour until the engineer had to apply the brakes at the Dale Creek Bridge.
The Wyoming State Historical Society Awards Committee informed me this past week that Bear Claws, The Iron Horse Chronicles–Book Two has been selected to receive an award in the Publications Category for 2016. The award will be presented at a luncheon to be held in Buffalo, Wyoming, during the Society’s annual meeting on Saturday, September 10, 2016. I plan to be there.
The location is fortuitous because Buffalo is sixteen miles from Fort Phil Kearny State Historic Site where I want to do additional research on the book I am currently writing. This novel takes place in 1866 along the famous Bozeman Trail. I visited Fort Phil Kearny in 2010, but my ongoing research has generated questions that can best be answered by walking the ground and talking to local experts.
I look forward to the trip for three reasons. First, to receive an award from the Wyoming State Historical Society for Bear Claws is thrilling and gratifying. Second, to visit the site again where my characters will act out their scenes will be helpful and rewarding. Third, I always enjoy traveling through the beautiful state of Wyoming.
While we enjoyed the fine food and a buttery chardonnay, we reminisced about the many other places where we had lived when celebrating previous anniversaries: Orange County, California; Denver, Colorado; Honolulu, Hawaii; the Sinai Desert, Egypt; the Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia.
Bear Claws, The Iron Horse Chronicles–Book Two, has been selected as a finalist for the 2016 Will Rogers Medallion Award in the category for Younger Readers. Eagle Talons, the first book in the trilogy about Will Braddock and his quest to determine his own destiny at the time of the building of the transcontinental railroad, won the Bronze Will Rogers Medallion Award in 2015 in the Younger Readers’ category.
I plan to go to Fort Worth, Texas, to participate in the festivities and award ceremony on October 29, 2016, when the medallions will be awarded. I wrote about my experience and posted this photo last year when I received the Bronze Medal for Eagle Talons. Click the Archives button in the sidebar to see my post from October 26, 2015.
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I want to offer special congratulations to fellow WWA member Lucia St. Clair Robson. She received the Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Contributions to Western Literature. 
If you have read my book Eagle Talons, The Iron Horse Chronicles–Book One, you will recall she wrote the following, wonderful blurb for my book’s cover:
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