JanDunlap.com

We have been preparing for the mission for months. My partner and I have learned to respond to each other’s slightest moves. The strategy of attack has been mapped out, all avenues explored. The possible routes have been thoroughly scouted and the execution of the task rehearsed endlessly. If the need arises, the unforeseen happens, we can, at a moment’s notice, alter the plan to one of multiple alternative options for implementation. Our goal is to attain the objective within five minutes, then return to home base in less than ninety seconds.

There are those who doubt us, who believe the mission is impossible, but it can be done. I am confident of success. The hard work of the last five months has not been in vain. Failure is… ...more...

I can’t believe it. It looks like a Scott’s Oriole has been sighted in Duluth, MN, just three hours from my home. What’s unusual about that is that a Scott’s Oriole is a bird native to the southwest. What’s even odder (is that an oxymoron?) is that my Bob White characters see a Scott’s Oriole in my most recent release, Falcon Finale, when they go to Arizona. And now they could have stayed home and seen one right here in Minnesota!

This has happened to me before with these books: bird events that echo my book events. For the first book, it was an influx of Boreal Owls (normally very hard to find) in northern Minnesota the winter after the book The Boreal Owl Murder debuted in September 2008… ...more...

Spring has been crazy. We’ve had unseasonable cold (snow on May 1!), record breaking heat (103 degrees last week!) and everything in between. On top of that, we added a two-year-old dog to our household, and I feel like I’ve got a toddler underfoot again! Here I thought my life had settled into a neat routine of teaching and writing, but life has this way of always surprising me.