I've been on the road a lot this year and had a wonderful time meeting friends, fans, booksellers, fellow authors, and publishing folks all over the country. It has been stimulating and exciting to see so many new places and faces.

But it is also exceedingly pleasant to come home to this mountain valley and soak in the quiet and calm of a Rocky Mountain summer. We have elk and deer in the front meadow every morning and evening, visits from foxes and even an occasional bear—we have a big, big bear around this season!—to enjoy the scolding of the ravens and the chatter of finches, wrens, and Rocky Mountain bluebirds, who are nesting under the eaves of the house.

Our wolf Tiwa recently got into a playful "fencing" bout with a young bull elk who is surely destined to become leader of his own herd, as he was fearless and challenging. If you'd like to take a peek at these two playing along the fence line of Tiwa's confine, check out the YouTube video by clicking HERE.

I'll be home for a short time, sitting on the deck writing, working on the fourth in the WILD Mystery Series while the third moves along the editorial process and into publication. Hope you all have blue skies, beautiful views, some WILD things to share your days with, and a safe and joyous summer.

I have just returned to the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City after the Agents & Editors cocktail party, where I received an incredible honor. This honor of which is speak is a special Edgar® Award, the Simon  & Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award. This treasure was presented to me for my first in the WILD Mystery Series, WILD INDIGO, by none other than Mary Higgins Clark herself. My presenter, Ms. Clark, was not only gowned and coiffed elegantly (as always), but as gracious and good-hearted as could be.

I'm still drinking it all in, not yet in real-time.

To tell the honest truth, I never dreamed...not of the nomination, nor of winning the award. Particularly amid such a distinguished and accomplished field of nominees. And yet, here beside my laptop in my hotel room is an engraved crystal book that reads:

"The Mary Higgins Clark Award/April 2008/Mystery Writers of America/Simon & Schuster/Presented to Sandi Ault, Wild Indigo."

I am sufficiently amazed that I am unable to say much more about it. The event flashed past me like a bolt of lightning. I cannot remember much at all except that it happened, and now here is this beautiful trophy. I do remember saying thanks (or at least I hope I actually said these thanks) to all those who make a book happen, and I can recount those many gratitudes to you readers here:

Once a writer produces a story, there are so many amazing and diligent and talented people who make that story into a book that it almost seems unfair to put only the author's name under the title. There is almost always an agent, and an editor and perhaps an assistant or associate editor, a copy editor, a master editor, an art department, a publicity department, a sales department, a marketing department, and so on and so on and so on. All these people add their hard work and talents to the story that becomes a book that wins an award that the author takes home with her name alone on the prize. To all these characters who helped me along in the journey of WILD INDIGO, I say thank you, and I am grateful.

I also thank my husband, Tracy, the Tiwa people who shared stories with me, my family and friends who believed in me and supported me, the booksellers and fans, and the Mystery Writers of America and the committee of judges who read the book and gave it their vote. And of course, as always, I am ever grateful to Mountain, the wolf in WILD INDIGO, who gave me so many lessons and stories and traveled with me as that story became a book.

This is all some kind of wonderful!

I'm still swooning over The L.A. Times Festival of the Book, which just ended on an upnote last evening, when I attended the Agents Panel, which was standing room only—a fair-sized auditorium filled with aspiring authors wanting to hear the latest from agents on what will get them that sought-after publishing deal. I attended mystery panels as well, and was pleased to participate in one deftly moderated by Sarah Weinman. I signed and signed and signed, met thousands of fans, and hung out in the fabulous, constantly gourmet-catered, green room where I met everyone from Scott Simon to Tim Curry and every author you can imagine inbetween.

A high point for me was meeting Mary Higgins Clark and her daughter Carol Higgins Clark. Since I am nominated for the MHC Award at the Edgars for WILD INDIGO, it was a delight to meet these two women who are the very embodiment of success in the publishing world. I also attended their delightful panel in which ace NPR interviewer Fran Helpern steered them from past to present and all points in between, eliciting delightfully intimate and heartfelt responses from the two authors, as she probed with extraordinarily insightful questions.

The heat was sweltering, and yet nearly 150K fans came pulling wheeled carts or schlepping backpacks to meet and hear their favorite book people, to have them sign and to have their photos taken with them. I'll fill in more details later, but I'm on an incredibly tight schedule to get to the Edgars in NYC this week next. In the meantime, with all the media hype about how the book is dead, let them eat cake (in the green room at the LAT FOB). In Los Angeles, at least for this one spectacular weekend, over a hundred thousand of us braved the heat and the crowds to say Long Live the Book!

For photos from the LAT FOB, check out the WILD Blog Photo Album by clicking HERE:

    Here in the mountains, ravens call to us as we hike up the slopes of the mountain, through the pines. Tiwa, our wolf companion, wallows in a deep pocket of snow to cool himself from the heat of exertion and a sunny day. It's beautiful here in the Rocky Mountains, where snow still falls at least once a week, but spring pushes through and brings sunlit afternoons that warm into the sixties. I smell the sharp scent of the pine needles as the sap rises. I pick up a handful of snow mounded against a lichen-covered rock outcropping and find it has condensed to ice crystals the consistency of a good snowcone. The sky is the color of turquoise. One raven scolds as we crunch through the snow and pine needles, warning every resident of the forest that there are strangers coming.

    This coming week starts another round of travel that will lead us far from these mountains and from our home. First, to the Pacific Northwest, where I will enjoy reuniting with friends and fans and talking again with media for a signing in Tacoma, WA. From there, on to sunny Los Angeles for The L.A.Times Festival of the Book, an exciting celebration of literature that features literally hundreds of authors, editors, agents, literary critics, writers, bloggers, and thousands of fans. What an honor it is to be invited to such a premiere event!  And from there-directly-a long flight with my agent and my husband clear across the continent to the asphalt jungles of New York City, where the Annual Edgar Allan Poe Awards® will be given out at a televised, red-carpet, black-tie gala at the Grand Hyatt Hotel.

There in New York, the only raven we will likely encounter might be the poem by the patron saint for which the Edgar® Award is named. The Edgars® are commonly known as "The Academy Awards of Mystery", and these "Oscars®" of our genre are awarded in much the same way as the film industry recognizes its best and brightest. The best and the brightest of professionally-published mystery authors nominate and then jury the latest crop of work. What a mark of distinction it is for me as an author to have a book nominated for an award by such distinguished peers! But even more: WILD INDIGO is the first and only debut novel to be nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award, making it even more of an tribute!

    I cannot help but wish Mountain, the wolf in WILD INDIGO and in the WILD Mystery Series, were here for all of this excitement, and to see what a celebrity he has become. But of course, Mountain would care nothing for the asphalt jungle, the black tie attire, or probably even the Edgar®. He would be more at home with the mountain, the pines, the raven, and the swales still full of snow, as Tiwa was on our hike today. Mountain was with me in spirit as we went up the mountain, just as he and I did so many times together-up the slopes to Tradition Rock, an outcropping from which you can see the whole pine-covered valley, and from which our small cabin looks no larger than the dot at the end of this sentence. So many times, Mountain and I packed a lunch and spent the day on those very slopes, and the trails we hiked and the rocks we climbed were permeated with beautiful memories for me. Mountain was always ready for another adventure.

    I would love to bring home an Edgar® to commemorate the journey that Mountain and I took through life and onto the pages of WILD INDIGO and the WILD Mystery Series. I would love to share it with him when I return and visit the place where we scattered some of his ashes, to thank him again for teaching me so much about how to live. But no matter what happens, I am thrilled and completely honored to have been nominated. What an exciting adventure this has become: from ravens and rocks and mountains and pines, from coast to coast, from the work I love to the asphalt jungle to celebrate with my esteemed colleagues the highest achievement of storytellers in our field. From the delight of meeting so many wonderful fans of the West and of mystery in particular to the delightful call of the raven as we pass through the pines on our way to Tradition Rock. What a wonderful journey, indeed.

For photos of Tiwa, Tradition Rock, and hiking with the ravens in the mountains, check out the WILD Blog Photo Album by clicking HERE: 

    The WILD INFERNO One Hot Launch Party took place this past Saturday night, where we celebrated the release of the newest episode in the WILD Mystery Series, WILD INFERNO. The WILD INFERNO Incident Management Team were all there in their tough-looking tees and caps reading "If You Can't Stand the Heat . . . Stay Out of the Inferno!"
Several area fire departments brought wildland apparatus, and there were exciting wildland firefighter demonstrations. We had a terrific time!

There is nothing like working with a team of dedicated and skillful firefighters. These same folks who came to manage the incident known as the WILD INFERNO One Hot Launch Party are the guys and gals I serve with on wildland fires here in Colorado. They're the folks I work with at the wildland academy where we train new firefighters every year. They're the best possible people you could ever have at your back. And that's for saving your life I'm talking about, not to mention celebrating the release of your latest book.

And that includes family and long-time friends who came to celebrate with me the birth of another book in the WILD Mystery Series. They joined the team, donned the gear, heeded the incident action plan, went by the timeline and the incident objectives. And the results were pure magic. (This may be an omen for WILD INFERNO—magic things are happening all around this book!)

Picture yourself walking into a historic log lodge in a high mountain community and reporting for duty at the Incident Command Post on a wildland fire, perhaps your first deployment ever to a fire. You check in at resources, where Diane and Kristen give you your division assignment, your Incident Action Plan, and directions to the camp supply cache where you will get your gear. At the supply cache, the friendly staff of Macdonald Bookshop of Estes Park—Don, Laurie, and owner Paula—will help you get all the supplies needed for this assignment, including copies of WILD INFERNO and WILD INDIGO, as well as ball caps, tees, and carabiners much like the ones the Incident Management Team are wearing.

When you arrive at your first drop zone, your division superintendent—Tracy or Josh (with the capable help of Vic and Tom)—will seat you to wait for the briefing. While you are waiting to be briefed, the food unit—Bev, Doug, Sherry, and Bobbie—are cooking food, and the facilities group—Jack and Gale—are making sure everything is as it should be.

The briefing begins, as Plans Section Chief Marci walks you through what it's like to wake up in the dark of the wee morning hours in wildland fire camp, then introduces all the command and general staff one by one and they brief in turn: Dave, the Ops Chief; Brian, Logistics (with deputies Jeremy and Tim—who also serves as Ground Support); Kent, Communications and Staging; Claudia, Medical; Dave, Safety; Marilyn, Information; and . . . Liaison Officer Sandi Ault, who reads the first chapter of WILD INFERNO as the newly-reported firefighters in the audience listen in complete silence and then break into a roar of cheers and applause. And finally, the Incident Commander, Greg, tells everyone about the sale of the WILD INFERNO bandanas to benefit the Wildland Firefighter Foundation, which benefits our injured and fallen.

After the briefing, Division Alpha makes a visit to the Firecamp Chow Hall for spectacular firehouse chili, potato-veggie chowder, and a beautiful array of condiments, crudites, crackers, and chips and dips. While they're munching, Division Bravo is getting schooled by the Wildland Pack Task Force and the Wildland Tools Task Force, Brady and Weston. On the way between drop zones, each division will visit the Medical Unit for a refresher on self-care on a wildland fire, and for any minor medical needs.

Administrators Terri and Mandy are overseeing needs while the documentation unit: Eric, Pat, and Lee Ann, are making sure that every element of the event is properly recorded. And Kasia from the Associated Press takes photographs. Yours truly is busy signing copies of WILD INFERNO in hardcover, and the newly released paperback of WILD INDIGO in droves! Meanwhile, an exquisite audio-visual display of wildland fire footage and stills plays on a giant screen, and the Incident Management Team mingles and answers questions among the crowd.

We crown the event with the optimal delight: a spectacular cake featuring the setting for WILD INFERNO complete with a smoldering wildfire, a blaze-blackened forest, the twin spires of Chimney Rock with the moon ensnared between the stone pillars, the fire lookout tower, and even the ancient Puebloan ruins complete with kiva—and the cover of WILD INFERNO across blackened ground—all beautifully executed by artist extraordinaire, Pat, with transport assistance from Gary.

Members of the Fall River Writers cut and serve this spectacular cake while two of their group sing and play cowboy music in the auditorium and the fire crew munches on their choice from the two types of cake from this amazing creation: carrot, or dark-chocolate raspberry. Smart firefighters try some of each!

Newly purchased copies of WILD INFERNO and WILD INDIGO pass across the signing table, folks don the red bandanas, crews go back again and again to the chow hall for some of the delicious food, and everyone delights in how fun, exciting, enlightening, and entertaining ONE HOT LAUNCH PARTY can be.

My thanks to the posse from Pinewood Springs Fire Department, Big Elk Fire Department, and all the rest of the wonderful folks who came to celebrate and promote the success of WILD INFERNO. And especially to the WILD INFERNO Incident Management Team. What a team! What a launch! What a hot party!