This last week I had the great pleasure of an extended day with a fan of my Team Walker Series. Scott Alstrom from the Seattle area and his son Alex. They joined me for a fabulous float fishing trip on Alaska’s famous Kenai River. Also along was my son-in-law, Clancy, my grandson, Chase and Mark, a great friend who also is an early copy reader and critic of my books.
I guess it is no surprise that many of my readers are also outdoor enthusiasts. I get a lot of comments like, “I couldn’t stop reading,” and “after an hour with your book, I was right there feeling the fear along with your characters.” Any writer loves to hear that a story captivates the reader, and making my readers part of every story is a goal I work hard on.
But with the entire world available, I also get a lot of feedback on settings for my stories. The outdoors is my sanctuary. My previous career in the corporate world as a consultant and doing political consulting, I found significantly stressful. I learned then that a hike in the mountains or just sitting on a rock watching a crystal-clear river flow helped balance my life. A day on a river with a flyrod recharged me then and even more now that my career is all about creating thrilling plots, and characters whose stress is only relieved by a great story ending.
The outdoors, from Mexican ocean scenes to wilderness mountains and wild rivers, works its way into every one of my stories. I love to hear things like, “I could feel the raging wind on my face,” or “I just knew that the serenity on that lake was about to explode.” The newest Team Walker book, due out next summer , will take the reader from a remote cabin on the famous Iditarod River to the total wilderness of Russia’s Chukchi Peninsula. The final setting on the endless gyrating ice of the Bering Sea takes me back to one of my favorite trips. A year ago, Carmen and I led a creative writing class for the kids at America’s most isolated school on Little Diomede Island only a few miles from Russia. The setting was brutal, with screaming winds and below zero temperatures, but the kid’s creativity and the village’s welcoming made it a joy to be there.
By July 2026 many of you will be able to let me know if I did a good job bringing you into that extreme wilderness with me.
Which gets me back to the fishing trip on the Kenai River. I’d like to hear about your favorite natural, wild, getaways. There’s a good chance that I would love to visit your sanctuary. On the Kenai fishing trip, we happened to hit the middle of a historically huge run of Sockeye Salmon, more than 3.7 million fish. Six of us hooked at least a hundred salmon before we turned our attention to fishing for Arctic Char and Rainbow Trout. We brought home nine salmon, but we could have taken dozens. In just an hour of trout fishing we caught and released at least a dozen fish. The ride home was all smiles and lies, I mean fishing stories. I’m including two pictures. One is Chase with a salmon and the other the guide and me with a nice rainbow.
Let me close by offering a shoutout to Jason Lesmeister of Jason’s Guide Service in Cooper Landing, Alaska. I’ve had the pleasure over three decades of watching him become one of the best guides I’ve ever fished with. He just has a knack of helping everyone have a ball.