Episode Details

EP 24 Mike and Kathy Gear

Wendy Corr:

Well, hey there, folks, welcome to the Roundup! We are a Cowboy State Daily podcast that focuses on interesting people in the Cowboy State. I'm your host, Wendy Corr. And I am so thrilled today to introduce to people - if they have not heard of Mike and Kathy Gear, you will go out and buy their books after this conversation, I'm telling you! Because they are prolific writers, prolific authors in a wide variety of genres - not just in fiction, but in archaeology and in actual real historical facts. And it's just been a pleasure to get to know this couple, who lives up here in Northwest Wyoming and have made Wyoming their home for many years now.

I'm just going to go ahead and say hello to Mike and Kathy Gear. Hello, you two! I'm so glad to have you on the call today.

Kathy Gear:

It's a pleasure.

Wendy Corr:

I have to say, I had the pleasure of introducing our Cowboy State Daily readers to Mike and Kathy a year and a half ago, or something like that. And since then, they just keep coming up with more books. And I want to first off start off by saying, welcome. You guys are just - you don't stop working, but you both look lovely and rested. So I guess that means that you're doing something right, you're doing things that you love. Tell us about - let's start off with, how many books have you written so far? Each of you individually? But I will say and introduce people to the idea, the fact that you guys actually co-author everything. Yeah.

Kathy Gear:

So I have written 15 individually, Mike has written 20 individually, 22 individually? We can't even remember. And I think now we have 90 published.

Mike Gear:

Yeah, the problem is because some of them are reprints. But I think we could easily say 88 individual stories.

Kathy Gear:

That have been published so far. We have many more in drawers.

Wendy Corr:

You've got many more in drawers that are just waiting to come out?

Kathy Gear:

Just waiting to come out - actually, they're early novels, Wendy. And if there is justice in the universe, no one will ever read it.

Wendy Corr:

Really? And why is that? Because my gosh, we've been blessed with your stories for so many years. I think your first one came out in 1988, is that correct?

Kathy Gear:

That's right. Yeah. But those early novels, Wendy, are works in progress, where you're developing how to plot, how to create characters, how to describe the environment, and we weren't very good at it when we got started, which is why no one bought those. Wise decision.

Wendy Corr:

But you now have this years of experience behind you, where you might be able to revive those plotlines at least right?

Mike Gear:

Some of them. For example, the first novel that I ever wrote is so bad that if there's justice in the universe, like Kathy said, no one will ever see them. And I thought, quite honestly, because it had been up in the attic at the ranch house, and then the pack rat moved in and he kind of, like, crapped all over it. And so - I had my opportunity, and I was able to say, look, this has got to be thrown away. And I thought, thereafter, I was safe. No one would ever pick that up and go, 'Jiminy Christmas, this is real junk.' But then it turned out, after my mother died, we found another copy in her papers. So I'm still not off the hook.