A Breed Apart Hardcover

Got home to find the hardbound large print edition of A Breed Apart waiting on me. I didn't even know those rights had been sold. My editor at Penguin, Brent Howard, FedExed a couple of courtesy copies of the book to me. He's a terrific guy and I'm not saying that just because he's my editor and I'm late with my next book. Brent and Signet did a great job with the paperback cover of the book -- it really pops -- and I like this cover of this edition as well, which is published by Center Point. I don't know who designed this cover, but I think it's a classic, and I just wanted to say thanks. So, great work! Now, A Breed Apart wasn't the original title, but that's another story...

Greensburg School - May '07

What's left of a school in Greensburg. The tragedy would have been much greater had the twister hit at 9:30 in the morning on Friday, May 4, 2007, instead of 9:30 at night.

Any Given Yard - May '07

This shot is representative of just about any yard in Greensburg in the days after the tornado.

Destroyed Home - May '07

A home just north of the Big Well Museum.

Big Well Skylight - May '07

Here's what was left of the skylight over the Big Well.

Big Well Museum Site - May '07

Here's what the EF5 twister did to the water tower over the Bill Well museum. This photo, and the others of the tornado aftermath, were taken by me a few days after the tornado.

Big Well Museum Building - Feb '07

Here's how the museum used to look -- under the carport that says "Big Well" with the area is a skylight at the top of the well. The building to the left, with the neon OPEN sign, is the entrance to the well. Inside is the 1,000-pound pallasite meteorite (once the world's largest) found in 1949 by H.O. Stockwell using a war surplus metal detector in the Brenham strewnfield just east of town. You can just see the hood and front tires of my Jeep in the parking lot at left.

The Big Well Museum - Feb '07

Here's how the Big Well Museum used to look. There was a whistle on top of the water tower that market the day for Greensburg residents. The last time it blew was at 5 p.m. on Friday, May 4, 2007. At the time, I was doing research on Harvey Nininger at McPherson, Kansas -- and had plans to continue to Greensburg, but changed my mind and came back to Emporia instead.

The Big Well at Greensburg - Feb '07

Since January, I've been working on a narrative non-fiction book about meteorites in Kansas, and in February I visited the Big Well Museum at Greensburg, Kansas, home of one of the world's largest pallasites (and which was pulled from the Brenham strewnfield, between Greensburg and Haviland). I tend to take a lot of photographs during my research, because it is easier and more precise than taking notes about how things look. Here is how the interior of the Big Well looked in February 2007. Now, it is filled with debris, and the museum above is gone.