My "River Story"

One of my favorite nonprofits, one that I've donated money to since the early 1980s is American Rivers. The nation's leading river conservation organization, American Rivers is dedicated to protecting and restoring the nation's rivers and the clean water that sustains people, wildlife, and nature. They focus on removing obsolete and unsafe dams to restore natural flows, preventing harmful and destructive projects such as logging or mining, protecting wetlands, encouraging treatment of stormwater and wastewater, promoting water conservation, and educating the public on global warming and other forces that threaten our water supply. Just this month, they opened a Colorado office to focus on my state's ailing rivers--and my river ranger protagonist Mandy Tanner's state.

Both my character Mandy Tanner and I enjoy recreating and working on Colorado's rivers. We have a vested interest in keeping those rivers healthy. As a result, I've been working with American Rivers and local river watershed conservation organizations to see how the release of Deadly Currents, the first book in my RM Outdoor Adventures mystery series, can help raise awareness of river and water issues--and maybe raise some funds to support river conservation, too. You'll hear more from me about this as events and plans solidify.

In the meantime, I've contributed my "River Story" about how I fell in love with free-flowing, natural rivers to American Rivers' website and their upcoming newsletter. To read the story, go HERE and page down to the heading "Whitewater Experiences Motivate Mystery Author." Click on "Read More" to find out about my early whitewater canoeing experiences and more. Then, if the article, and the issue, interests you, go HERE and make a tax-deductible donation to American Rivers. I can assure you that they'll put the money to good use.