FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT:
Grace Wright
615-715-8465
ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER-TURNED-AUTHOR CELEBRATES EARTH DAY WITH
RELEASE OF FACT-BASED NOVEL
‘The Plateau: Voices of the Earth’is First Installment of
Trilogy fromMaureen Dudley
DENVER, COLORADO – Just in time for Earth Day,
Maureen Dudley has penned “The Plateau: Voices of the Earth” (Hawk’s Cry
Publications, an imprint of Word Keepers, Inc., April 22). The first fictional
but fact-based novel in her stimulating three-part series showcases the need to
protect and preserve natural environments for this generation and others to
come.
In “The Plateau,” Dudley tells the story of an
environmental engineer named Catherine and what happens when she meets an
enigmatic archivist who has “time traveled” 200 years from the future to discover
the pattern of decisions that led to how their world evolved.
Enlightening Radio host Christine Andrew calls the
novel “timely and thought-provoking.” And ForeWord Magazine writes, “The book
keeps a page-turning pace that will engage those who enjoy fantasy, general
fiction, and stories about the environment.”
Having spent more than 20 years working as
environmental engineer herself, Dudley draws on her vast knowledge of
relatively obscure and underreported issues and events to bring attention to the
breadth of the world’s environmental problems. Her dramatic storytelling blends
elements of science fiction and environmental advocacy, inspiring readers to
reflect on the planet’s vulnerability and how every step we take – for better
or worse – impacts the earth.
And while Dudley attempts to create awareness about
certain issues facing the planet today, she encourages people to investigate
and reach their own conclusions.
“You may agree with me, or your conclusion may
differ significantly from mine,” said the Denver based author. “I can only tell
you that I strongly believe, and hope you agree, that we need to strive to take
care of our environment so that future generations are left with air they can
breathe; water they can drink; land, streams and seas they can cherish.”
Visit www.MaureenDudleyBooks.com for
more information on the book and author.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
An environmental engineer by education and
profession, Maureen Dudley writes with passion and poise in her
conservation-focused trilogy from Hawk’s Cry Publications, an imprint of Word
Keepers, Inc.
She spent eight years researching and writing the
first installment, “The Plateau: Voices of the Earth” (April 22, 2013) and
hopes her debut novel motivates readers to learn more about what is happening
to our environment, become cognizant of our own impacts and strive to make a
positive difference.
Dudley lived in Butte, Montana until she was 22
years old. There, sheearned a Bachelor of Science degree in environmental
engineering from Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology. She then moved
to Colorado where she began a career as an environmental engineer with the
state. After more than two decades of working for state and local governments,
Dudley decided it was time for a change. With the support of her spouse Dave
and her four-legged friends, first Kilty and now Charley (pictured), by her
side, Dudley transitioned into her next career as a writer.
Dudley lives in Denver, Colorado, where she enjoys
hiking and biking in the great outdoors.
COVER ARTIST ERIN E. HUNTER
As both a children’s book and scientific
illustrator, Erin E. Hunter specializes in entomological and botanical
illustrations. She has taught botanical illustration and field sketching at UC
Santa Cruz and teaches workshops at local venues. Her portfolio includes print
and online design projects for clients ranging from marketing firms to culinary
groups to educational organizations—and she’s drawn insects under a microscope
for the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History.
Erin lives with her husband on California’s Monterey
Peninsula. When she’s not sketching and painting, she tends to flowers, fruit
trees, and vegetables in her backyard garden.
“The
Plateau: Voices of the Earth”
Paperback $19.95, eBook $9.99
ISBN: 978-097853939-9
Fiction, 350 pages
Hawk’s Cry Publications,
an imprint of Word Keepers Inc.
April 22, 2013
The first of a thought provoking trilogy that dares
readers to explore consciousness of the mind and observe how their everyday
actions are having an impact on the world around them.
What if you have half a second to stop the
extinction of part of the human race? What if that pivotal day to save humanity
depends on you saving your own life? Catherine’s life and humanity’s continued existence
depend on her ability and willingness to believe in an altered, future timeline
with a colony of Earth inhabitants.
It couldn't come at a worse time. Catherine’s father
dies unexpectedly. The pressure of her research and advocacy work adds dead
weight to her life’s precarious tipping points. Catherine’s losing battles includes
sleep deprivation. Sleep eludes her, and when it does come, she finds herself
repeatedly dreaming about standing on the same high plateau with her greyhound
dog, Addy, and a stranger (Keitha) and her dog (Murphey) surrounded by plants
and animals and insects, and then poof! The living landscape transforms into
ash.
Catherine does not suspect that she is the lynch
pin, but she is the one who must stop the Machiavellians from shifting Earth’s
future timeline, that will ultimately result in the colony’s extinction. But,
because of her own beliefs in the Hau de no sau nee (Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy)
principal that we have to consider the effect decisions have on descendants
seven generations into the future. Catherine puts this belief to the ultimate test
when she learns that ‘the event’ is her own death. In order to stop it, she
must walk directly into its path.
Praise for the Book
“The author uses Keitha and Catherine’s stories to
illustrate how important it is to take care of the environment, not just for
their sakes but also for that of future generations who must live with the outcome
of their ancestor’s actions. The story keeps the reader engaged by revealing
just enough of the past’s influence on the future. Despite the revelation of
future outcomes to the reader, the author was able to maintain the suspense in
the narrative, and this is definitely one reason the novel works well.
‘The Plateau: Voices of the Earth’ is a very
interesting and well-written story. The plot is engaging, the characters are
likeable, and once the action gets going, the book keeps a page-turning pace
that will engage those who enjoy fantasy, general fiction, and stories about
the environment.”
- Laura
Munion, ForeWordReview Magazine
“Given this particular time in the state of our
collective consciousness in our world, I think ‘The Plateau: Voices of the
Earth’ is a timely and thought-provoking book.”
-Christine
Andrew, Enlightening Radio/CoSozo Radio
REVIEW
This was a very interesting read. Although mostly
fantasy, filled with elements of sci-fi ‘time travel’, its hard hitting facts
and truths made it thought-provoking and very real.
The story was a little confusing at first, as scenes
played out between the present (200 years from now) and the past (our present).
It took me a little while to wrap my head around how the colony worked and who
they even were, but as the story progressed and details of the Archivists and
their role in looking into the past unraveled, I better understood their
purpose and importance.
I did find the first
half of this book to be a bit slow and quite often my mind wondered to other
things. There was too much story-telling going on in this story and even though
most of what was being told had some bearing on the rest of the book, it just didn’t
capture my imagination. There were also a few moments when past interactions
with secondary characters were remembered and this felt like more of a filler.
I did like Keitha. She
had a certain fire and spirit that brought the story alive whenever she was
around. She’d lived a hard life, filled with many half-truths. Her relationship
with her mother, Clara, is strained and they never seem to get along. Things
only worsen as the truth unravels and she finally gets to understand why Clara
distanced herself all those years before. There is also great pressure for her
to succeed in connecting with Catherine. It’s like the literally has the fate
of the world on her shoulders.
I really enjoyed the
idea of time travel through spiritual form. And even though it may be
fictional, I believe there are those who possess the ability to connect with
others in this way. Presently, these people are known as psychics etc. but in
200 years they may just been known as Perceptives, as the book says. We see a
struggle between Catherine and Keitha, as the former tries to make sense of
what is going on, and the latter tries her best to communicate under somewhat impossible
circumstances. Keitha’s frustration and annoyance only makes things worse and
pushes Catherine away. But I believe they were both able to learn a lesson from
Murphy and Addy, their two beautiful animals, who have so much patience and
trust for each other. If only humans were more willing to open themselves to
the possibilities that are out there. And only if the world we lived in allowed
us to trust so easily.
The thing that really
stood out to me was the message of, what we
do now will reflect in the future. We are all aware of global warming, species
on the brink of extinction and the plight of many natural resources. The question
we have to ask ourselves is what are we doing to help? Because even though this
book is fiction and tells of a bleak future for many generations to come, how
many of us have actually sat back and thought about how our actions can affect
the future of our world. This book in every essence is a huge possibility if we do not act now. We have to be more
vigilant and think about how one tiny thing we do today, will shape the future
around us.
Another thing I took
away from this book, if the Machevilans are anything to go by, is that greed
and power can lead to our ultimate demise. We only have one future, and it is
ours to protect for the generations to come.
It gets...
Q&A with “The Plateau: Voices of the Earth”
author Maureen
Dudley
After
more than 20 years in the environmental engineering field, what inspired you to
embark on a career as a writer?
After I resigned from local government, I worked on
a few contract projects. But then I ultimately decided to try and write a book
that would entertain while still informing people about some of the
environmental issues we are facing. And perhaps even create enough interest so
that people would look into the issues even more.
You
use real examples of little known environmental events to breathe life into
your novel. Tell us about some of those events and why you chose to include
them in your fictional book.
Certainly some are less well known than others, the
Khian Sea incident, and the Yablokov Report which I used early in the book to
show what can lead to what. Others I think are very well known like the Kyoto
Protocol, the Endangered Species Act, and the plight of the honey bees. I just tried
to highlight what might be some lesser-known aspects of each. I’d rather not
try and summarize any of these because they are complex issues and what is in
the book is only the proverbial tip of the iceberg.
The story told in “The Plateau: Voices of the Earth”
includes time travel – but not the kind often portrayed in literature and
movies. What kind of time travel do your characters do, and how did you come up
with the idea?
The type of “time travel” involved in the book is
mental not physical. The two main characters never physically leave their own
environments. Eventually, because they have some shared genetics, they are both
able to reach out and connect with the other across space and time with their
minds, meeting on the neutral plateau.
I’ve had the seed of the idea for a while, just
pondering the concept of time travel and how it might work. You hear stories
all of the time about “out-of-body” experiences, and so I thought if the mind
can reach out spatially why not temporally. But not randomly, that was where
the genetics came in. The nitty-gritty part came together as I wrote and
explored the ideas.
What
can readers expect in the next installment of this trilogy?
One of the first things that will be definitively
answered is the identity of who the Machiavellians from the future are
communicating with in Catherine’s time. Also, the second book is titled “The
Plateau – Voices of the Future,” and there will be a focus on the future colony
and how they live. At the same time, Catherine will continue working on the
environmental issues that we face in today’s society; the link between what is
happening now and what the colony in the future is contending with will become
even clearer. Who are the Machiavellians and what do they ultimately want?
What
do you think is the biggest issue facing our environment today?
Not recognizing that everything is interconnected.
Something that happens thousands of miles away from where you live can
eventually impact you. What we do, or don’t do, today will have an impact,
whether it is tomorrow or 200 years from now. There are acute crises like
Chernobyl, Bhopal, and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which have lasting
impacts, while many other issues we are facing are chronic. They have developed
over a long period of time because of constant pressure. The issues are complex
and many of them require large coordinated efforts. It can seem overwhelming
and can lead people to wonder what they can do that will actually matter.
However, if we are cognizant of our own impacts in our everyday lives, and
strive to make a difference, no matter how small those differences may seem, we
will make a positive impact. We may never see the big payoff that our efforts
eventually bring but, all of us working together, doing those everyday things—like
hand weeding our yards instead of applying herbicide, or going to the car wash
so soap doesn’t run down the street into the storm sewers that lead to our
waterways, or picking up after our dogs—means we become a coordinated effort; a
force. And one day those that come after us will look back and be grateful that
all of the people from our time pitched in to do the right thing.
You
are passionate but careful not to force people into your own beliefs about
issues like this. Why is that?
I don’t think it’s being careful so much as the fact
that I think people should investigate issues and reach their own conclusions.
You may agree with me, or your conclusion may differ significantly from mine,
for whatever reason. I can only tell you that I strongly believe, and hope you
agree, that we need to strive to take care of our environment so that future
generations are left with air they can breathe; water they can drink; land,
streams and seas that haven’t been damaged beyond the hope of repair. And that
the creatures which share this earth with us deserve the same. The wild
creatures are our sentinels, they warn us of changes, because they live their
lives in the air, in the water and on the land.
Visit www.MaureenDudleyBooks.com
for more information on The Plateau:
Voices of the Earth and information on some of the issues facing the
environment today.
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