Old Dog

By Nib

I miss my daughter. She’s all grown up and living hundreds of miles away from me. This is the kid who always makes me laugh. She often gives wise counsel well beyond her years. She’s smart and interesting. But what I’m missing most about her today is her youth.

Because simply by being young, she understands technical things is a way I fear I never will. I remember a time when I could keep up. I actually could program my VCR. I was a fairly early adopter of computer technology, researching online when we had dial-up connections. I had one of the first bag phones. But somewhere along the line, technology overtook me, ran me down and crushed me under its boots.

It worked out fine, though, since my daughter lived with me. She could teach me how to use the remote and DVR shows. She synced my iPod and programed the heater. But she moved on several years ago and I have lapsed into laziness, falling ever further behind. I quit using my iPod and since we moved to rural Nebraska and don’t have fancy TV service that would allow me to record shows, I settle for Netflix and Amazon (only doable because my daughter bought me a Roku device and my super-smart husband set it up).

But things are fixing to change around here. It all started a few months ago. A friend published an audio book and asked me to give it a listen. So I had to figure out how to download audio books onto my phone. Man, that opened up a whole new world for me. I had used books on tape and CD forever, but now I could listen to books anywhere!

Then my good friend and fellow Midnight Inker, Mark Stevens, kept talking about podcasts writers would find interesting. He started a new column in the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers newsletter and his first recommendation is Reading and Writing Podcasts.

 I’d been listening to a few podcasts from NPR for a couple of years so I figured I could do this, too. Mark explained the podcasts were an easy download from iTunes and free.

Okay, first step: download an ap on my phone since I have an Android, not iPhone. Except the aps won’t download. On the website, it tells me it’s installed but on my phone, it’s in perpetual downloading mode. For hours and hours. Two different aps, same result. Several attempts (that old definition of insanity: doing the same thing and expecting different results) and nothing. Next step: find old iPod. How many times have we moved since I last used that thing? Too long.

Third step: borrow husband’s shuffle. Plug it into my computer, download the podcasts onto my computer and sync shuffle to iTunes. Except, it won’t sync. Read online guides. See nothing in the instruction illustrations that looks similar to the screens iTunes is showing. Curse like a sailor.

Two hours later, after much frustration, and temptation to start shooting whiskey at 10 A.M., I have a fully loaded shuffle. I have no idea how I did it. I’m pretty sure I can’t replicate the process.

I have a plan, though. When I finish listening to the podcasts, I’m going to buy my daughter a plane ticket to see me.

Sleuths, Bombers and Mystics: In the World of Genre Fiction

February 16, 2012 4:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.


Join writers Carol Berg, Janet Fogg, and Mark Stevens for a panel on writing and publishing genre fiction, which will culminate with a short reading of their works. These writers have been on the Denver Best Seller List and the Military Book Club bestseller list, and won awards such as the HOLT Medallion Award of Merit, Colorado Book Awards, the Prism Award, the Geffen Award, and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature. All come to ACC with great accolades from the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. $5 suggested donation for the Writers Studio Scholarship fund. Location: Arapahoe Community College Main Campus, Rm M4750, Denver, CO.


Janet Fogg’s focus on writing began in the 1990s when she was CFO for the coolest architectural firm in Boulder. Fifteen writing awards later, Janet resigned from the firm to write full-time, and ten months after that she signed a contract for Soliloquy, her award-winning WWII historical romance.

In 2011 Casemate Publishing released Fogg in the Cockpit, a Military Book Club bestseller co-authored by Janet and her husband Richard Fogg. Based on the wartime diary of Richard’s father, Fogg in the Cockpit offers a first hand look at Howard Fogg’s fascinating and often unexpected story as a fighter pilot during WWII.

Janet was the 2010 Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Published Author Liaison, is a long-time member of RMFW, Pikes Peak Writers, and two fantastic critique groups. In her free time she has fun with cars with Richard. Her website is at www.janetfogg.com.


Former software engineer Carol Berg majored in mathematics at Rice University and computer science at the University of Colorado. But it is her thirteen epic fantasy novels that have won national and international awards, including multiple Colorado Book Awards, the Prism Award, the Geffen Award, and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature. They’ve been translated into multiple languages, appeared on bestseller lists, and been read, so readers tell her, on five continents, on a submarine under the Mediterranean, in the war zone of Iraq, and on the slopes of Denali. Her novels of the Collegia Magica have received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews, using words like compelling, intelligent, complex, enthralling, and superbly realized. The latest is The Daemon Prism. Her website is at http://www.sff.net/people/carolberg/.


The son of two librarians, Mark Stevens was raised in Lincoln, Massachusetts, graduated from Principia College in Illinois. He worked as a reporter for The Christian Science Monitor in Boston and Los Angeles; worked for The Rocky Mountain News, covering City Hall for three years. He produced television news for The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour in the United States and Latin America. He covered the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City, NASA’s space shuttle disaster, a volcano eruption in Colombia, political upheavals in Nicaragua, and mudslides in Puerto Rico. After tending bar for a year on a self-financed sabbatical (and to write fiction), he joined The Denver Post to cover education. Those five years of reporting led to a position as Director of Communications with Denver Public Schools for more 11 years and then with the Greeley school district and the state department of education. He now works in public relations. After two decades of writing fiction, Mark was published in 2007. His first Allison Coil Mystery, Antler Dust, hit the Denver Post best seller list when it was published and again in 2009. The sequel, Buried by the Roan, was published in August, 2011 and is receiving excellent reviews. Both books are set in the Flat Tops Wilderness of Western Colorado and feature hunting guide and amateur sleuth Allison Coil. The third book is on the way and tentatively scheduled for release in 2013. His website is at http://www.antlerdust.com/.