Kathryn Meyer Griffith, Author of the Incredibly Popular Dinosaur Lake, Chats About the Creation of Her Novel and the Cultural Fascination With Dinosaurs

Hi there, everyone! I hope that you're all having a wonderful day - I certainly am! :) Anyway, I have a real treat for the readers and followers of Emeraldfire's Bookmark. Kathryn Meyer Griffith, author of 19 published books, 2 novellas and 12 short stories, originally wrote a backstory about Dinosaur Lake - a Finalist for the 2014 EPIC Ebook Awards in the Suspense/Thriller Category - back on August 30, 2012!

Yes, I realize that this was almost two years ago, and that I'm just getting around to posting it today, but in my own defense I literally just found Ms. Griffith's guest post while I was perusing several old emails. Since this guest post was written, Ms. Griffith has since gone on to publish 3 more books, 2 novellas and 12 short stories. As a matter of fact, one of those books is the recently published Dinosaur Lake II: Dinosaurs Arising - the sequel to Dinosaur Lake - which I had the pleasure of reading back in April of this year. Here is my review. :) 

Ms. Griffith was also kind enough to send me a copy of Dinosaur Lake II: Dinosaurs Arising last month, and I sincerely hope to start reading it very soon!

Meet Kathryn Meyer Griffith

Kathryn Meyer Griffith is a wife of almost 35 years (husband, Russell), mother (one son, James) and grandmother (two grandchildren, Caitlyn and Joshua). She was a graphic designer in the corporate world for 23 years; and has published with Dorchester, Kensington, Avalon Books, The Wild Rose Press, Amazon Kindle Direct, Damnation Books and Eternal Press, and Amazon Publishing. Six years ago Kathryn crossed over into e-books as well as paperbacks and now all her old/new books are in ebooks...and soon to be in Audio Books from ACX.

She loves cats and nature, classic rock and country music (her brother, J. S. Meyer www.jsmeyermusic.com, is a singer/songwriter and does the songs for all her self-made book trailers that are on her websites). Kathryn loves to interact with her readers, so visit her at either of the following websites: www.myspace.com/kathrynmeyergriffith or www.authorsden.com/kathrynmeyergriffith to see all of her book covers and trailers.

Connect and Socialize with Kathryn!

Myspace * Author's Den * Youtube * Facebook * Goodreads

Synopsis from Goodreads:

An ancient predator has been reborn in the caves beneath Crater Lake…and it’s hungry. 

Ex-cop Henry Shore has been Chief Park Ranger at Crater Lake National Park for eight years and he likes his park and his life the way it’s been. Safe. Tranquil. Predictable. But he’s about to be tested in so many ways. First the earthquakes begin…people begin to go missing…then there’s some mysterious water creature that’s taken up residence in the caves below Crater Lake and it’s not only growing in size, it’s aggressive and cunning…and very hungry. 

And it’s decided it likes human beings. To eat.

And it can come up onto land.

So Henry, with the help of his wife, Ann; a young paleontologist named Justin; and a band of brave men must not only protect his park and his people from the monster but somehow find where it lives and destroy it…before it can kill again.

Coming to Amazon on 29 August 2012!

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Prehistoric creatures have again invaded Crater Lake National Park 

…and this time there’s more than one. 

Henry Shore has been Chief Park Ranger at Crater Lake National Park for thirteen years now and thought the days when he’d had to fight a rogue dinosaur that lived in the caves below the lake were long over. Until one of his park rangers, to save a visitor’s life, is in a deadly struggle out in the woods with a new breed of dinosaur worse than the last one. It’s as big as a man, but this one is a young one. And growing. 

Then more of the creatures begin to show up everywhere, threatening people and destroying the tranquility and safety of his beloved park. 

A tourist trolley filled with fifteen people is snatched up off the crater’s rim by another version of the younger one…but this one has grown into a giant with fangs, claws and a deadly tail. And this one has wings. Ugly Gargoyles, Henry calls them. For this one isn’t alone. They’re flying beyond the park’s boundaries into the neighboring towns. 

So Henry, with the help of his son-in-law, a paleontologist named Justin, and a band of brave park rangers, and a few good soldiers, must not only protect his park and his people from monsters once more but find their lair and destroy it and them before the creatures kill again.

Coming to Amazon on 27 March 2014!

I would like to welcome Kathryn Meyer Griffith, author of Dinosaur Lake to Emeraldfire's Bookmark. Ms. Griffith was kind enough to write a guest post for me and here it is below in her own words:

'Dinosaur Lake’s Backstory Essay'

by Kathryn Meyer Griffith 

Of all my 16 novels Dinosaur Lake has the strangest story attached to its creation, death and rebirth…20 years later…of any of them.

Not so much because, as a few of my books, it took so long to write or publish, but because in 1993 it was contracted, edited and the final galleys had been proofed by me for a 5th paperback book release from Zebra (Kensington Publishing) after 3 earlier novels with Leisure Books. I even had a stack of the full-color, printed and embossed covers; it was only weeks before it was to go to the bookshelves (in those days the brick and mortar stores were still king, no Internet or ebooks). I strongly believed it’d be my breakout book. You know, the book that’d make my career and launch me into the stratosphere with Stephen King and Anne Rice? How wrong I’d be. But, hey, I thought who wouldn’t love a tale of a cunning but malevolent rampaging prehistoric dinosaur living in Crater Lake, Oregon, and the Park Ranger who, along with a ragtag gang of heroes who’d try to stop it? I mean, I’d always loved anything about dinosaurs…dinosaur books, playing with those little plastic figurines and watching old stop-action dinosaur movies of the 1950’s and 60’s…who hadn’t?

Apparently someone. My new editor at Zebra.

By 1994, after four novels with them, I’d lost my sweet editor there and a new one took her place...and over the next year he didn’t like anything I wrote for him and later that year Zebra unceremoniously dropped me and my book (Predator…which never came out but still lingers to this very day like some weird ghost book in every computer on the global Internet) only six weeks away from going to the bookstore shelves. When we were editing the book and deciding on the title and the cover, I’d begged the new editor not to call it Predator (his choice as they hadn’t liked my American Loch Ness Monster title), bad title since there was a popular movie out of that name and the movie, with Arnold Schwarzenegger, was nothing about a dinosaur, and the cover was awful, an empty boat on a lake…what!!! Having that book - my first ever - dumped like that was a crushing experience, let me tell you. I had a stack of finished, printed covers and my final edits were done! But nothing my agent or I could say or do would change their minds. They said they were cutting their horror lines and setting adrift a lot of their mid-list horror authors because horror (in 1994) was on the decline. The new editor-that-didn’t-like-my-writing explained: “And no one wants to read a book about a dinosaur.” Yeah, sure.

And six months later Jurassic Park the book came out! We all know how that story ended, don’t we? People loved the book, the movies; they loved dinosaurs.

I’ll never know the real reason they cut the book but that male editor never bought another book from me…which was another weird thing because when I’d met him in New York (I went for a Horror Convention) in the summer of 1993 he’d taken my husband and I out to lunch and gushed over me and said how much he’d loved my last release Witches. Hmmm.

Anyway, I got to keep my advance but the book was officially dead. It never came out. I grieved.

I was so disgusted I stashed it in a drawer somewhere and tried to forget it.

Until now. After I’d finished revising and rereleasing all my new/old 15 books (and besides paperbacks they’re in ebooks for the first time ever) from Eternal Press/Damnation Books in June of 2012 I remembered about my American Loch Ness Monster novel, took it out and reread it.

Whoa, like a lot of my older novels now years later I could see what was wrong with it and how to fix it. Back then I hadn’t seen the head-hopping I did or the awkward phrasing, stiff or overly dramatic dialogue, repetitive words and other things I’ve learned since to recognize and stay away from. Of course, computers help make the editing so much easier. I think I’d done the original book on my electric typewriter.

Anyway, telling myself the dumping of that book had been a turning point in my writing life - sending me in the wrong direction for a long time apparently…I couldn’t sell a book for eight long years after that - I decided to rewrite and finally release it. In fact, I was going to do something that twenty years ago would have been unheard of and frowned on…self-publish the book myself. With Kindle Direct. For the first time in forty years I was walking away from the traditional publishers and going on my own. Thank you J.A. Konrath’s blog! I figured I could sell the Kindle ebook a lot cheaper and, thus, use it to introduce (as enticement) more readers to my writing and perhaps, if they liked it, they’d buy more of my other fifteen novels, novellas and various short stories.

It could work, right?

So here it is, retitled, rewritten, updated and with an amazing new cover I love by Dawne Dominique… Dinosaur Lake. I hope my readers will like it.

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Written this thirtieth day of Aug, 2012 by the author Kathryn Meyer Griffith E-mail me at rdgriff@htc.net - I love to hear from my readers.

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Novels and Short Stories from Kathryn Meyer Griffith

All available on Amazon on my page - check 'em out!

May you read well and often