“The habit of reading is the only enjoyment I know in which there is no alloy. It lasts when all other pleasures fade. It will be there to support you when all other resources are gone. It will be present to you when the energies of your body have fallen away from you. It will last you until your death. It will make your hours pleasant to you as long as you live.” — Anthony Trollope
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New Release Footprints in History combines imagination and
Janice McCaffrey, Author
historic events during America’s Early Colonial Period, to tell of the author’s seventh great-grandfather, blacksmith and indentured servant, James Fitchett. James stands up for his convictions and influences early education on Staten Island, New York. While Thomas Gordon, an attorney representing his brother, one of the twenty-four Scottish investors, known as proprietors, strives for an honest government in the new colonial province of New Jersey. Their wives build a bond of friendship as they experience their new worlds where not all settlers share the same hopes and beliefs.
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NEW! Pandemic Anthology features 40 writers from around the world
The brainchild of Montana mystery writer Lise McClendon, the anthology, STOP THE WORLD: Snapshots from a Pandemic, sprang from the depths of lockdown, with help from co-editors Gary Phillips, Kate Flora, and Taffy Cannon, on a bleak spring day in this infamous year. Over 40 writers from ten countries contributed short fiction, personal essays, and poetry to help us understand the struggles, isolation, sacrifice, and heartache of this strange time in our lives.
Some writers chose to mine their own psyches and experiences, whether the challenges of life in lockdown or their struggles with productivity and focus. Others felt called to wry, dark fiction or poetry. Across the globe the reactions portray a similar anger, pain, and struggle from writers from the US, Canada, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Northern Ireland, Spain, Italy, and Romania.
Several Montana writers contributed to the anthology: Tami Haaland, former Montana poet laureate, Craig Lancaster, Billings novelist, Tim Cahill, acclaimed travel writer, and Allen Morris Jones of Bozeman, who wrote two pandemic poems for the book. Lise McClendon also wrote a personal essay.
The anthology was published August 4 by Thalia Press. It is available in e-book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, and KOBO, and in paperback from Amazon and Bookshop.org.
Read a roundtable discussion with four contributors, Dan Fesperman, Tatjana Kruse, Matt Coyle, and Sarah M. Chen, moderated by Lise McClendon at CrimeReads.com
Thank you for your generous support. All profits go to charity.
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By Karen Wills
Now I just look at it wondering who has sat there, and if they were healthy, or a carrier of the Covid virus. I pause a little, but don’t sit down, just walk on by.
By Betty Kuffel
Like a lot of you, I had trouble settling down to read in March and April, but I’ve been making up for it since then! Since travel opportunities are curtailed, I’ve particularly enjoyed traveling on the page. Books have taken me to Paris, the Breton Coast of France, New Orleans, a lakefront dark sky park in Michigan, and Dustbowl Oklahoma!
Montana Women Writers 