My novel won a Finalist award for the category Fiction: Multicultural! I feel so honored to receive this award from the 2026 International Book Awards program.
IBA Finalist Award for Dancing on the Brink of the World
Indie Bookstore Weekend 2026
Celebrate on April 25 or 26 by visiting your local independent bookstore and buy one of the thousands of wonderful fiction or nonfiction books available. Keep bookstores alive and thriving. If you can’t go this weekend, visit your store sometime this week or month. I’m thrilled to see my book displayed on the top shelf at the front of my local indie bookstore, Moonraker.
Where Can I Buy Your Book?
My novel is showing up on bookstore display tables in good company! Here’s my book at the awesome Sausalito Books by the Bay. I see it’s for sale in other countries too. Check out Hatchard’s Bookshop in London or Blackwells Bookstore in Oxford, UK. Grab a copy at your local bookstore.
Book Club Discussion Questions
Several book clubs have bought my novel and are scheduled to talk about it. These reading guide questions might help stimulate your group’s discussion.
- If Captain Barney hadn’t forced William off the Orion, would he have chosen to stay?
2. William had to adjust to a new society, a mix of cultures, customs, and entertainment. Why did he reject some of the Californio way of life?
3. Mark Twain said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” How does this sentiment apply to William? Is this idea really true?
4. The novel’s title is a line from an Ohlone song. What significance did it have to the story?
5. General Mariano Vallejo said, “Richardson was the right man in the right place at the right time.” What were William’s qualities that suited him to the time and place? What were María’s? In what way did their personalities help keep them together?
6. María and her mother, Doña Martina, have a great deal of influence and knowledge. How did they influence their husbands? What actions of theirs pleased or bothered you? What roles do women perform today that influence others?
7. How do race, class, age, and religion affect the relationships between William and the Martínez family? Between him and Diego? Between the Indigenous people and the Franciscan priests?
8. William said he wanted to leave his family with more than footprints in sand. What did he mean by that? What footprints might people leave for their families?
9. What might happen next in William and María’s lives?
10. “Visions are worth fighting for,” according to Orson Welles. What was William’s vision, and did he achieve it?
11. Were you surprised by any of William’s or María’s decisions throughout the story? Why or why not?
12. Many historical figures interact with the Richardsons in this novel. How did the scenes with them affect your understanding of this early California period?
When did European sailing ships venture onto the oceans?
A visit to the Marine Institute in Lisbon, Portugal, reminded me of the Portuguese navigator Prince Henry, who encouraged brave sailors to sail the oceans, far from the safe shores of their home country. My photo shows a model of a Portuguese square-rigged sailing ship. Before the 1400s, most European sailing ships had a single lateen sail for navigating around the Mediterranean Sea. They were swift, and the sail was easy to move to take advantage of the wind’s changing directions. To navigate, mariners used portolan charts, maps that showed coastlines and ports.
Once Spanish and Portuguese sailors dared to travel further from shore into the ocean, they developed nautical maps which showed ocean currents and sea routes, not just outlines of the coasts. They preferred the large square sails for their larger ships.
Sea captains were tempted to take chances on the open seas in pursuit of gold, silver, silk, and spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, pepper, and ginger. Portuguese ships followed the currents west and arrived in South America, claiming the land that is now Brazil as a colony for their country. Spain sent Columbus and other explorers west, but they landed further north, establishing colonies in what is now Mexico, Florida, and the Southwestern states to California, along what they named the Gulf of Mexico. The Spanish conquistadors invaded Mexico in search of gold and silver, but also discovered another treasure for Europe, chocolate.
The larger ships were also needed for whaling. Whale hunting for food dates back to prehistoric times, but later, commercial whaling ships sailed all the oceans and chased whales for their oil. Whale oil was valued for lighting and lubricating machinery. Whaling was not only dangerous but also nauseating when sailors boiled the blubber to extract the oil. In the 1800s, Captain William A. Richardson arrived in Alta California on a whaling ship. After surviving severe weather, a churlish captain, and treacherous whale hunts, he had less trouble deciding on his future.
Was California ever a slave state?
The Republic of Mexico’s Constitution, adopted in the 1820s, forty years before the American Civil War, prohibited slavery. By 1846, all mission neophytes had been freed from the mission system and the mission lands had been secularized. Mexican-appointed governors chose administrators for each California mission to give the land and livestock to some mission neophytes and many rancheros.
American settlers moved into the California territory with Native American and Black slaves after 1840. They never became Mexican citizens or bowed to Mexican laws. In 1846, several American men staged a revolt in Sonoma to make California a republic with their laws. They were named the Bear Flaggers for the flag they created for their republic. Many of these rebels were quite drunk, and some people thought the bear painted on the flag looked more like a pig, but the Americans pulled down the Mexican flag and saluted the new California Republic flag. Now they could keep their enslaved workers and their land without bowing to Mexico.
The United States Pacific Naval Squadron annexed Alta California a few weeks later, and the California Republic flag was lowered and replaced with the Stars and Stripes. When California became a state in 1850, it joined the Union as a free state. Until the Civil War, some enslavers kept it secret from their workers that they were now legally free.
Because several state flags have a pro-slavery history, many flag enthusiasts see it as a disturbing problem and want to change them.
Why are wild horses dying in the West?
I read in Outdoor Life that in Western states, wild horses and burros are dying due to lack of water and grass for grazing. The same happened often in the nineteenth century in Alta California during droughts. Some of the horses Spanish conquistadors brought to North America escaped into the wild, and with no natural predators and a fast reproduction rate, they multiplied. During dry years the free-roaming horses competed with the ranchos’ cattle that grazed in the hills. Sometimes rancheros organized round-ups to chase the horses farther into the mountains or even to kill them by forcing them to stampede over cliffs. It seems like a drastic, cruel way to control the number of such beautiful animals, especially when you remember how many horses were trained to work for people. They carried riders in saddles around ranches and bareback in circuses. They hauled wagons over prairies and carriages in cities. Knights and soldiers rode war horses into battle.
A zookeeper/writer friend, PJ Beavan, reminded me in her recent ZooFit blog about how instinctive horses are with people. They can tell a rider’s mood and even reflect it in their own actions. Through my research I learned how well rancho vaqueros and their horses were in tune with one another. They had to be when working with cattle and when so many threats surrounded them in the nineteenth century wilderness of Alta California. The horse was a valuable work animal that learned to hold a rope taut when a steer or a grizzly was lassoed. Their quick reflexes and natural instincts protected many riders from disastrous injuries or death.
What uniforms did Mexican Presidio soldiers wear in the 1800s?
Mexican soldiers wore uniforms of dark blue wool jackets with scarlet collars and cuffs and brass buttons, matching wool trousers, and wide-brimmed black hats. But for protection from indigenous peoples’ arrows, the soldiers wore leather coats that hung to their knees. They carried long lances and leather shields as shown in this photograph. This display is in the San Francisco Presidio museum on the site of the original Spanish Presidio. Because the soldiers often herded cattle and horses, rode as escorts for the friars, and carried mail between presidios, the cumbersome leather coats were shortened to jacket length. The jackets were made of antelope hide with red felt collars and cuffs. Antelope-hide leggings or breeches covered the soldiers’ legs.
Covid-19 Vaccinations in 2021
Just as many other people are, I’m anxiously waiting for a Covid-19 vaccination. How fortunate we are to live now when so many vaccines are available to prevent deadly diseases that regularly dispatched people at a young age. As I read in Bill Bryson’s book The Body: a Guide for Occupants, vaccines for smallpox, diphtheria, polio, and measles saved the lives of millions. Better sanitation, improved diets, and fresher foods also helped in a major way.
In the early 1800s in Alta California, there were no doctors and little medicine. Smallpox caused virulent epidemics in the Native American population, but occasionally the vaccine was available to inoculate some of them. Because Captain Richardson had some medical experience during his service in the British merchant marines, he helped the friars at the California missions when he could. For common illnesses, most medicines were made from plants. Blackberry syrup was used to treat coughs. Indigenous people in California drank a tea made with the leaves of a native shrub, now known as mountain balm, as a remedy for coughs, colds, asthma, and bronchitis. After they taught Spanish settlers to use it, the Spanish called the herb yerba santa, meaning “holy or sacred herb.” Chemicals in the leaves are effective in loosening phlegm. Chumash people in Southern California probably taught Richardson to use the leaves in a poultice to relieve pain from sprains, bruises, and arthritis. When doctors or naval surgeons visited California, they might provide doses of medicines such as laudanum, mercury, or calomel. Some of these proved to be worse than the illnesses they were supposed to cure. Laudanum was addictive, and mercury, used to treat syphilis, could kill the patient.
What was the origin of the label “bull and bear stock markets”?
Bull and bear fights were a common entertainment in early California. Vaqueros rode into the hills, searched for a grizzly bear, lassoed it, and dragged it back to a corral, which was often set up near a California mission. When a bull was dragged into the same corral, the bear’s rear leg was tied to one of the bull’s forelegs, and the two beasts were forced to attack each other. Somewhere I had read that these fights were the early origins of the stock market terms. The way the animals attack inspired the name. A bull thrusts its horns up, while a bear swipes its claws down. A bull market refers to a rise in stock prices while a bear market portends a downward trend. In her recollections of social life and customs in the 1830s, Captain Richardson’s daughter Mariana described watching such a fight when she was nine years old, the animals attacking each other as they tried to break away and escape. However, after checking on the Merriam-Webster website, I found another origin story. An old proverb warned it was unwise to sell a bear’s skin before catching the bear, meaning don’t buy something of no value. The term “bearskin jobber” came into use, “bearskin” was shortened to “bear,” and that term was applied to a stock being sold by a speculator or the actual speculator. Bull market might originate from the use of bulletin board notices for the early London Stock Exchange: the more bulletins on the board, the stronger the market.