Colorado River is America's Most Endangered River

American Rivers recently designated the Colorado River as America's Most Endangered River of 2013. Please help protect it by taking action at their website! Also, watch the beautiful and disturbing video about the river on their home page. The Colorado River is so over subscribed with water rights that its waters have not reached the sea for many years (and Mexico has not received its fair share of the river's water for even longer!).

I've been an American Rivers supporter for many, many years, long before I started writing the RM Outdoor Adventure series featuring whitewater river ranger Mandy Tanner. I highly recommend supporting this conservation organization and their fight to preserve the Colorado River. The photo below of a rapid in Cataract Canyon in Utah was taken by my husband when we were on our research trip on the Colorado River for my upcoming mystery release, Fatal Descent.

Watching a River Come Back to Life

American Rivers is my favorite river conservation nonprofit, and I contribute to it regularly. I was moved by this article at their website about how dam removal has helped a river come back to life as steelhead, other fish and wildlife, and the health of the entire stream has dramatically improved. Take a look!

Horse Creek Dam: Six Years After It Was Blown to Bits

And just for fun, here's a link to an article giving 5 Reasons Whitewater Rafting Is Better Than A Theme Park!

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.

A Teleconference with my Publicist

Yesterday I had an energizing teleconference with my Midnight Ink publicist, and I'm tickled pink by all the things her department is doing for my book. I'm used to minimal promotion support from Five Star, so this was a pleasant and welcome change. Not only is Midnight Ink sending review copies to the traditional book review publications and the mystery publications, they are also targeting outdoor-oriented and whitewater rafting magazines. Also, they accepted a list of Colorado media contacts and recommended online reviewers from me and may select some of them to receive review copies.

For someone who is used to arranging all my own appearances, it was nice to hear that the publicist will help arrange my launch signings. I'll still take care of the vast majority of my event arrangements, but it's nice to have some help.

Today I will be talking to the Deputy VP of Resource Development at American Rivers (a favorite cause of mine), and I will have some good news for him. Along with me arranging a fundraiser booksigning event for the nonprofit, Midnight Ink will donate some copies of Deadly Currents for them to use in silent auctions and as donor incentives. I hope this will be the beginning of a long and fruitful partnership between American Rivers and me. I plan to use my RM Outdoor Adventures series as a way to make more people aware of their good work.

I have many other promotion plans in the works, including a Goodreads giveaway or two, a blog book tour, possibly a book trailer, appearances at Colorado whitewater festivals, and so on. And, keep your fingers crossed for me! I think I've convinced the Publicity Manager that participating in the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association Trade Show, at least in a small way, is a good thing.