Author and close personal friend Randy Cassingham has joined our list of Extended Authors with two compilations from his This is True weekly newsletters. Volume 5 in the series is “Cost of Being Poor Rising.” Volume 6 is “Platform Shoes Claim Another Life.”
 
Randy Cassingham has a university degree in journalism, but he could never quite deal with the concept of intruding on people in disasters to ask, “How do you feel about this?” Nor could he ever keep a straight face when presented with outrageously silly situations that people tend to get themselves into that might make it into the “news.” So, not counting brief stings as a writer and photographer on his school paper (“It doesn’t count; it was a long time ago”), he has never been a reporter. Instead, he drove an ambulance in northern California (keeping a straight face most of the time, and since has been a search and rescue sheriff’s deputy, commercial photographer, writer, editor, publisher, software engineer, consultant, curmudgeon, and staff jester for various projects and companies. He is happily non-single and lives in Ridgway, Colorado. His personal website has more details.

Our Extended Authors

Greta Hemstrom, author of Slates, Chalk, & Inkwells, has joined our list of Extended Authors.
 
Greta writes about herself:
 
I grew up on a farm and have been a farm/ranch wife most of my married life. After the last of our five children left home, I acquired a Liberal Arts Degree at Mesa State in Grand Junction, Colorado. My degree included many studies in Creative Writing and Literature. I have been writing for nearly thirty years, and finally published my first book in 2008, which is titled Slates, Chalk, & Inkwells, A History of Schools in Colorado’s Uncompahgre Valley.
 
The inspiration for this book came about when I walked into the old 1912, two-room, yellow-brick, Pea Green schoolhouse on nearby California Mesa. The building had been remodeled and contained a convenience store in the east room and a small breakfast/luncheon establishment in the west room. When I walked in, the friendly spirits of the past grabbed me and my heart rate went up; I had just stepped back into the golden era of the old country school. I was hooked, and immediately began a search for the rural schools in the Uncompahgre Valley.
 
In the beginning, I did not realize how many, many schools were in session back then; I was totally surprised at how many were still standing and in use as dwellings or otherwise. What a joy the research became and what lovely people I met as I dug deeply for rural school information!
 
My husband and I retired from the farm almost twenty years ago. We now live on forty acres, where the pinon and jumipers grow and where the critters come to visit us in our high-desert yard on the east side of the Uncompahgre Plateau in Southwest Colorado. Life is good!

Our Extended Authors

Linda Louise Ashley has joined our list of Extended Authors. She is the author of a children’s book, “How Much, Woodchuck?: A Book of Ponderings and Opposites,” which she has extensively illustrated with original watercolor paintings.
 
Linda started her painting career in earnest in the mid-1990s. Soon after taking her first art classes, she found my true passion: watercolor. From then on she has had the opportunity to paint with many fine artists in workshop setting in wonderful locations here in Colorado and California. She always comes away with renewed inspiration and techniques to add to her repertoire.
 
She am fortunate to have a studio behind her home in Montrose, Colorado, and it is there she offers workshops in “watercolor basics” and several ongoing classes. Some of her Read more…

Our Extended Authors

Beth Paulson has joined our list of extended authors and also offers author services.
 
Beth’s poems have appeared in many small magazines and national anthologies, and her second book, The Company of Trees, was published in 2004. A former English professor at California State University Los Angeles, she directs poetry events, leads writing and creativity workshops, and lives in Ouray, Colorado, where she writes a column for the Ouray County Plaindealer.
 
In her writing Beth tries to connect her close observations of the natural world to the questions of the human condition and spirit. In her words, “I try to keep my mind/ on this calling,/ the only way I know/ to save the earth.”
 
Beth has received several prizes for her poems, including most recently two 2008 Mark Fischer prizes. Her poem, “Hollyhocks,” was nominated for the 2007 Pushcart Prize and her poem, “The Color of Snow,” was nominated for a 2009 Pushcart Prize.
 
See Beth’s website at www.wordcatcher.org. You may order her book of essays, Uniquely Ouray: Reflections on Life in a Mountain County, from our Extended Catalog.

Author Services, Our Extended Authors

At the recent Montrose Small Press Month workshop, I announced that I will do web fulfillment for local authors. By local I mean Delta, Gunnison, Montrose, and Ouray Counties. I’ll do it simply, too.

1. You leave a couple copies of your book with me
2. I will place information about your book into our “Extended Catalog” at list price, along with a PayPal “Buy Now” button.
3. I’ll put up an Author Profile in the “Our Extended Authors” category
4. Customers pay via PayPal; I’ll take care of shipping
5. I’ll be just like a bookstore: I keep 40% of list price, you keep 60%
6. You can pull out at any time—just drop by and pick up your books
7. If I sell out, please get additional copies to me promptly—PayPal will refuse to sell if the inventory drops to zero.

I reserve the usual rights to refuse anything for any reason. If you are interested, please use the “Contact Us” page or the comment form below.

Author Services, Mt. Sneffels Press, Our Extended Authors

One of our Extended Catalog authors, Michael Carson has lived in Montrose, Colorado, for thirteen years after moving from San Marcos at the age of twelve. He graduated from Colorado State University-Pueblo with a Bachelor’s Degree in Mass Communications and a minor in Creative Writing.
 
While attending CSU, Michael began work on his first novel, Extreme C-Sections!, which he went on to publish after finishing college.
 
Extreme C-Sections! is a science fiction comedy that satirizes every aspect of science fiction, from aliens to hovercars—a futuristic smoothie made of 1-part Douglas Adams, 1-part Mel Brooks, with a dash of green and blue lasers for color.

Our Extended Authors