Charlie Steel, TALE-WEAVER EXTRAORDINAIRE (born 1945), is a Western and Historical Fiction novelist, as well as an internationally published short story writer.
Steel has worked at many assorted occupations starting at the age of ten. Some of his experiences include service in the Army, labor in the oil fields, in construction, in a foundry, and as a salvage diver. Early in his life he was recruited by the US Government and spent seven years behind the Iron Curtain. His undercover assignments monitored Russian activity.
Steel currently holds five degrees including a PhD. He continues to read, research, write, and collect Western literature.
Charlie Steel lives on an isolated ranch at the base of Greenhorn Mountain, in Southern Colorado. Learn more at www.charliesteel.net
James J. Griffin has been fascinated by the frontier West since a young age. He is a lifelong horseman, Western enthusiast, and historian of the Texas Rangers. He has contributed an extensive collection of Texas Ranger artifacts to the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum in Waco, Texas. His particular interest in the Texas Rangers has resulted in his many novels about these famous lawmen.
James J. Griffin writes traditional Western books for adults, Young Adult Westerns, and even Easy Reader chapter and picture books for young and beginning readers.
For more information about Jim and his books, please visit his website at www.jamesjgriffin.net.
Growing up, Gail (MacDermaid) Heath traveled widely as a US Air Force officer’s dependent. Her parents taught her that the opportunities the family had living in Japan, Germany, France, and all across the United States were adventures to be treasured. Never living in one place long enough to make close associations, books became her lifelong friends.
Gail Heath earned a BA and teaching credentials at Michigan State University and a MA at Central Michigan University. She taught school for many years in Michigan and Nevada.
Heath has had articles, poems, and stories published in anthologies, national and regional magazines, as well as newspapers. She was a recipient of the Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference Award and a featured speaker at Sundance Children’s Festival. Heath actively writes and speaks out against all types of social injustice: prejudice, bigotry, and racism. Her most recent books and stories are dedicated to honoring and celebrating diversity.
A native New Mexican, Dr. Virginia Padilla-Vigil was raised in the village of Cuarteles, NM. She is married and has six children and four grandchildren. She earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education and master’s degree in at-risk youth education and counseling from the College of Santa Fe, and Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies from the University of New Mexico. Over the past 27 years, Virginia has served in various roles including elementary teacher in the Pojoaque Valley Schools and administrator in various 2 and 4-year colleges and universities and state government.
Dr. Padilla-Vigil is a lifelong educator and servant leader who has a passion for creativity and is a champion for diversity and multiculturalism. Throughout her career, she has maintained a commitment to transforming teacher education and preparing teachers who are grounded in their identity, teach with authenticity and integrity, champion equity, embrace diversity, and cultivate creativity and joy in the classroom. The story of Mariposa has been in her mind and heart since childhood and it has been her lifelong goal to share the story of Mariposa with the world.
Donald A. Yates was a professor of Romance Languages and translator of many Argentine writers. He was a frequent resident of Buenos Aires during the 1960’s where he taught American Literature at several Argentine universities under the auspices of the Fulbright educational exchange program. He then retired as a Professor Emeritus of Spanish American Literature from Michigan State University and lived in California’s Napa Valley.
Dr. Yates passed away in 2017. Condor Publishing, Inc. was honored to learn from Mrs. Yates that he had said he was just as proud, if not more so, of this children’s book than the many other academic books that he published. It was a legacy he left to honor his children and grandchildren.
I’ve had a wonderful and varied time along this bumpy highway called life. I spent my early years in Santa Cruz, California, swimming, fishing, and wallowing in the splendor of redwoods, the Monterey Bay, and a loving family. Then, my four years of high school were spent living on the Island of Guam. That was back in the early 1950s Yes, Virginia, I am that old, but only in body, not spirit.
My first job in radio was in 1958. I bought the Virginia City Legend newspaper in that old western mining community in 1971, and retired from having a job in 2010. That’s when I changed from being a reporter of news to being a writer of fiction, and over these last few years have found my western and crime/mystery stories published as novels and in magazines and anthologies, around the world.
My beautiful wife Patty and I live on a small hobby farm about twenty miles north of Reno, Nevada, sharing space with a couple of fine horses, a flock of egg-producing chickens, and some breeding rabbits. You’re always welcome to visit. I need help cleaning those corrals.
