JanDunlap.com

A funny thing happened on the MOU listserve last week. (If you aren’t familiar with the listserve, it’s the Minnesota Ornithologists Union’s means of keeping all the birders updated on what bird was seen where, along with other items of interest to Minnesota birders. Since I am a member of the MOU (as is my fictional protagonist Bob White), I get all the emails, and the one that caught my eye last week was a sighting of Northern Bobwhites, which is the premise of my third Birder Murder, titled “A Bobwhite Killing”. Another birder responded to the one who saw the bird, explaining that Northern Bobwhites are no longer considered wild in Minnesota because they have been so domesticated by farms. This is true, as I point out in my ...more...

My publisher, North Star Press of St. Cloud, tells me that the third Bob White Birder Murder Mystery is scheduled for release on September 1, 2010. It’s titled “A Bobwhite Killing,” and I will be reviewing the proofs in a few weeks and finishing the back cover copy.  The opportunity to be so involved with the production of the book is one of the many reasons I love working with North Star. A few weeks ago, I participated in a small panel of mystery authors at Normandale Community College’s bookstore, and we compared notes about our input to our finished products. My two colleagues (both with large East Coast publishing houses) told me they have no authority when it comes to naming their books or making creative decisions about cover ...more...