Badlands Books DVD's

Badlands Books

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Bob and Renie Gross

    My name is Bob Gross. I set up Badlands Books in 1998 for the express purpose of publishing Dinosaur Country by my wife, Renie. It so happened that the advent of desktop publishing coincided with my desire to try my hand at something new. When, through a series of events, the rights to Dinosaur Country reverted to Renie, it seemed a perfect opportunity to launch myself in a new career. This entailed talking Renie into updating the manuscript and letting me publish it.

    The first edition had been out of print for some years. It was published in 1985 by Western Producer Prairie Books, a Saskatoon-based company that was bought out by Vancouver's Douglas & McIntyre. Conversations with people at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of    Palaeontology convinced me that Dinosaur Country had filled an important niche in the information available about the area of the Red Deer River badlands and its fossil riches.

    In the interim since 1985, nothing similar had been written. My powers of persuasion prevailed. Renie set about updating the data for the 2nd edition of Dinosaur Country. This signaled the birth of Badlands Books.

    Frequently during the writing of the manuscript, Renie pointed out that I must have been using the term "updating" as a euphemism for "basic research." So much had changed in the twelve or so years since the original work was produced that she was faced with a complete reworking of it. More than half of the 2nd edition is entirely new information.

    Dr. Philip Currie and Dr. David Eberth of the Royal Tyrrell Museum and Dr. Ian Campbell, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta generously reviewed the manuscript for technical accuracy and Ms. Marylynne Stumpf of the English Department at Lindsay Thurber Composite High School in Red Deer assessed it for style and legibility. Copy-editing, final image scanning and cover design, and printing were contracted for and the rest of the job was up to me. I found it challenging and rewarding so by the time Renie completed another manuscript, which she had been working on for several years, I was eager to shepherd it into book form.

    We released Groundwork in the summer of 1998. Renie is once again immersed in the era of the Great Depression. The story she is researching promises to be an interesting one, and one we hope to publish in the not too distant future.

Update
When I first wrote this little introduction to Badlands Books, I was optimistic about branching out but a bout of illness and entry into my 7th decade have forced me to tailor my ambition to my ability to realize my aims. With this in mind, I am now concentrating on a labour of love --- the editing and publishing of plays by my son Paul Gross.

Badlands Books	<< main
	Bob and Renie Gross

My name is Bob Gross. I set up Badlands Books in 1998 for the express purpose of publishing Dinosaur Country by my wife, Renie. It so happened that the advent of desktop publishing coincided with my desire to try my hand at something new. When, through a series of events, the rights to Dinosaur Country reverted to Renie, it seemed a perfect opportunity to launch myself in a new career. This entailed talking Renie into updating the manuscript and letting me publish it. The first edition had been out of print for some years. It was published in 1985 by Western Producer Prairie Books, a Saskatoon-based company that was bought out by Vancouver's Douglas & McIntyre. Conversations with people at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology convinced me that Dinosaur Country had filled an important niche in the information available about the area of the Red Deer River badlands and its fossil riches. In the interim since 1985, nothing similar had been written. My powers of persuasion prevailed. Renie set about updating the data for the 2nd edition of Dinosaur Country. This signaled the birth of Badlands Books. Frequently during the writing of the manuscript, Renie pointed out that I must have been using the term "updating" as a euphemism for "basic research." So much had changed in the twelve or so years since the original work was produced that she was faced with a complete reworking of it. More than half of the 2nd edition is entirely new information. Dr. Philip Currie and Dr. David Eberth of the Royal Tyrrell Museum and Dr. Ian Campbell, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta generously reviewed the manuscript for technical accuracy and Ms. Marylynne Stumpf of the English Department at Lindsay Thurber Composite High School in Red Deer assessed it for style and legibility. Copy-editing, final image scanning and cover design, and printing were contracted for and the rest of the job was up to me. I found it challenging and rewarding so by the time Renie completed another manuscript, which she had been working on for several years, I was eager to shepherd it into book form. We released Groundwork in the summer of 1998. Renie is once again immersed in the era of the Great Depression. The story she is researching promises to be an interesting one, and one we hope to publish in the not too distant future.	Update When I first wrote this little introduction to Badlands Books, I was optimistic about branching out but a bout of illness and entry into my 7th decade have forced me to tailor my ambition to my ability to realize my aims. With this in mind, I am now concentrating on a labour of love --- the editing and publishing of plays by my son Paul Gross.