Get To Know Me Better

My writing space

As an author, I spend most of my day at the computer writing, promoting and keeping up with social media. As a reader, I enjoy getting to know the authors’ whose works I’ve read. I do this mostly through Facebook. I’ve met many people and made some great friendships. This is important to me. Why? Because I enjoy meeting people and getting to know them outside of their author persona. Which got me to thinking—it’s important for readers to know something about the authors they like other than the books she’s written. Author interviews help to form a bond between reader and author, so for this month’s post, I thought I’d share a little more about me to create more of a personal bond between you and me.

The hubby and me at the rodeo

Many know I’m originally from upstate New York, so when I make snarky jokes on Facebook about New York’s weather, it’s because I can relate to the heat and humidity and the cold and snow. I married my hubby two years after high school and accompanied him on his twenty-year career with the Air Force. We’ve been stationed in Illinois, New Jersey, Colorado and Virginia. Through his work and mine, we have met a lot of nice people and still maintain those friendships today. The best job I ever had, outside of being a mom, wife and author, was as a collection agent for the Air Force while stationed in Jersey. My boss had tremendous faith in me and gave me several responsibilities above my pay grade. One such responsibility was to work with the legal department. I got to know a few of the lawyers very well, and they got to know and depend on me, so much that when I was out of work for a month due to illness and a case came up, they waited for me to return instead of relying on a coworker, who was just as capable as me, to testify.

Eleven Mile Canyon, CO

Colorado was the nicest duty assignment as far as scenery and way of life. The Jersey shore is pretty in spots and has the best lemonade (I think it has something to do with the salt air) but the Rocky Mountains are breathtaking and rich with history. It’s little wonder we retired back to Colorado to raise our son. Speaking of the kiddo, I had him later on in life, which was a good thing. It gave the hubby and me time to ourselves and time to become financially stable to raise a child. Quitting work to be a stay-at-home mom was one of the best things I’ve ever done. I’ve been home for over a decade and honestly, I wouldn’t go back to a 9-5 job for anything. I really like being at home and being here for my son.

Loretta Lynn

I’m a child of the 80’s, leg-warmers, big shoulder pads, even bigger hair and rock/pop music. Before that, I was raised on country and western. Loretta Lynn and George Strait are my favorites. I spent most of the 90’s as a concert junkie, as country music came into its own back then and was everywhere, even in New York City! I saw everyone I wanted to see, with the exception of Alan Jackson, because where I was he wasn’t, but the hubby saw him when Alan gave a free concert at the Pentagon after 9/11. I remember dragging the hubby off to see Vince Gill, and when Vince started to jam on the guitar, the hubby was impressed. (He’s not one for country. He prefers his rock and roll.) Sammy Kershaw earned a laugh or two from the hubby and Garth Brooks earned his respect. And Billy Joel, the NY boy who made it to the bigtime, was a night neither of us will forget. And the kiddo—well, he loved Heidi from Trick Pony when he was little, so I snagged backstage passes and took him to meet her. At four years old, he was speechless and could only stare up at her. Heidi was really sweet and knelt down to chat with him for a minute.

Nova

The things I love the most outside of family and home are  Nova (our 85lb German Shepherd) iced tea, my truck and my slippers. If I could wear slippers to the store and out in the snow I’d be happier than a bear hibernating all winter. Nova has a weird attachment to my slippers; she uses them as a pillow and growls if someone comes near them. Sage is my favorite plant, horses and dogs my favorite animal and currently NCIS L.A. is my favorite drama and The Big Bang Theory my favorite comedy. John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara are my favorite actors. Veal is my favorite food, and grey and purple my favorite colors. Sticky notes are my best friend. I keep a weekly schedule of all I need to accomplish, and I enjoy hearing from you. Visit my website for a link to contact me (www.julielence.com). And the last thing to tell you; I am one of the most boring people you’ll ever meet.        

Shaniko

By Shanna Hatfield
   

Recently, I made a trip to Central Oregon to meet with the very talented Jane Kirkpatrick to work on plans for the 2015 Women Writing the West Conference taking place this October in Redmond.  Jane and I are co-chairing the event and despite the wonders of modern technology, sometimes you just need a good old-fashioned face-to-face meeting.

On the way to Redmond, Captain Cavedweller and I stopped in Shaniko to stretch our legs and look around.

Considered a ghost town, about thirty residents inhabit Shaniko. In fact, Oregon has more than 80 registered ghost towns, making it the ghost town leader in the country.

  Looking Down Fourth Street from the East in the Early 1900's

Travelers who leave Interstate 84 and head south on Highway 97 toward the heart of Oregon, will travel through numerous small towns, all spaced about nine miles apart. (The common distance traveled in a day back when the towns were first settled.)

Wasco, Moro, Grass Valley, Kent, Shaniko are all historic towns along the highway.

Although we've stopped in Grass Valley before, since it's the setting for my Grass Valley Cowboys series, we generally drive right by Shaniko. It's located on a 90-degree curve and unless you choose to go straight and enter what is left of the town, you pass by it in the blink of an eye. This time, we decided to stop. There are a few museums in town, an ice cream shop, and a small store.

The remaining buildings definitely have an old west feel to them.

I love the lettering and lace in the Shaniko Cafe windows.

It's connected to what used to be the Shaniko Hotel.

Across the street is a jail museum, complete with cells and replica handcuffs.

Shaniko's history is tied to the development of the five transcontinental railroad systems that opened the United States to remarkable economic growth from the 1860s through the 1890s. A spur line called "The Columbia Southern Railway" would open the eastern interior of Oregon to successful enterprises.

In 1862, gold was discovered in Canyon City, Oregon, drawing people to the area. A route to Canyon City started at the early settlement of The Dalles (located right on I-84 along the Columbia River). Camps were made wherever water could be found. Two nearby camps, Bakeover and Cross Hollow, drew settlers to what would become Shaniko.

In 1867, after complaints of hostilities with Indians and fear of robbery during gold transportation, the US government built a military wagon road from The Dalles to Fort Boise, Idaho. Following this road, homesteaders began claiming land in Central Oregon that had before been inaccessible.

One of the settlers was August Scherneckau, a man of German descent who came to the area after the Civil War. Although the locals pronounced his name "Shaniko," he served as postmaster in the town originally known as Cross Hollows.

The first train arrived in Shaniko May 13, 1900. There were a few buildings and many tents pitched to service the 170 or so people residing in town at that time. The first wooden building built was (of course) a saloon.

The stage in front of the Shaniko Hotel

The town's heyday arrived in those early years of the 20th century when Shaniko served as a transportation hub spurred by the presence of the Columbia Southern Railway, as well as a stop on the stage route heading north and south.

At the time, the city was known as the "Wool Capital of the World," and boasted the largest wool warehouse in the state. It was the center of 20,000 square miles of wool, wheat, cattle and sheep production, with no other such center east of the Cascade Range in Oregon. The region served by the city even stretched into Idaho, south to nearly the California border, and Washington.

Unfortunately, a competing line from the Columbia River along the Deschutes River to Bend that opened in 1911 put an end to the trek many farmers and ranchers made to Shaniko to ship their cattle and grain. On top of the decline in shipping, a fire in 1911 claimed most of the buildings in the business district.

Passenger service to Shaniko ended in the 1930s with the railroad ended all service by the mid-1940s.

If you ever have the opportunity to take a detour south of the freeway and drive through Shaniko, go for it.

It's a scenic drive with big open skies and rolling hills of wheat.

You might spy a few antelope along the way.

Or stop to look over a rock crib built more than a century ago. The glory days of the region are long gone, but a rich and fascinating history remains.

~*~*~

A hopeless romantic with a bit of sarcasm thrown in for good measure, Shanna Hatfield is a bestselling author of sweet romantic fiction written with a healthy dose of humor. In addition to blogging and eating too much chocolate, she is completely smitten with her husband, lovingly known as Captain Cavedweller.

Shanna creates character-driven romances with realistic heroes and heroines. Her historical westerns have been described as “reminiscent of the era captured by Bonanza and The Virginian” while her contemporary works have been called “laugh-out-loud funny, and a little heart-pumping sexy without being explicit in any way.”

She is a member of Western Writers of America, Women Writing the West, and Romance Writers of America.

Find Shanna’s books at:
Amazon | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords | Apple

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The Final Stages Of Writing A Book

By Kristy McCaffrey

Last week, I was in the home stretch of editing my manuscript The Blackbird. I’d spent months writing, researching, and rewriting the story, then I sent it off to the editor. As is usual when a manuscript is returned, there were many comments and suggestions, with the bulk being fairly minor concerns. (Along with those pesky grammar issues—it seems I still don’t know how to punctuate a compound verb. Yes, we authors are always learning something new when it comes to writing skills.)

There was a bigger issue, however, in the work. The heroine and her father had a rather volatile, and, the editor felt, unforgivable, aspect to their relationship. And while she loved the hero and his role in the tale, the heroine’s actions gave her pause. I appreciated the input because sometimes the writer is simply too immersed in the work to really see the bigger picture. But I had to consider carefully how I wanted to handle any modifications since anything I changed would ripple throughout the story.

It’s always good to sleep on it before making any knee-jerk decisions. And as I’ve done many times in the past when faced with a crossroads in my work, I hoped for a bit of inspiration. I can say with confidence that 95% of the time, no magical guidance ever arrives. As an author, I’m always forced to simply make a choice about which way to go in the story. But, this time, I did receive guidance.

I’d been reading a book called Eyes of the Wild: Journeys of Transformation with the Animal Powers by Eleanor O’Hanlon. Ms. O’Hanlon is a field researcher for international conservation groups and shares her travels and experiences with animals, beginning with whales, but also including wolves, bears, and horses. That night, I read a section where she recounted the tale of Sedna, a creative power to the people of the Arctic basin.

Sedna lived with her father in a tent made of reindeer skin. Together, they followed the herds across the great tundra plain. Before her mother died, she taught Sedna many things, such how to make clothing using finely carved needles from the bones of birds and how our own bodies are only clothes that we wear for a short time, when we journey from other worlds.

Sedna grew to be a beautiful young woman. One day, a handsome stranger appeared, and he was so vivid and compelling that she decided to marry him. Her father tried to advise against it, but Sedna wouldn’t listen. She left with the man, his hair the color of a raven. Once they were alone, she came to know that he truly was a raven. In fear, she fled and called out to her father, who came to her in his boat.

As Sedna and her father attempted to leave, a great storm came upon them, and the boat began to sink. Frantic with fear, the father threw Sedna overboard in an effort to save himself. As she clung to the side, he cut her fingers one by one until she sank to the bottom. In death, she met her mother and entered a light filled with all the love she thought she’d lost.

Photo courtesy of mrpsmythopedia.wikispaces.com

Back on the surface, her father was lost in grief over what he’d done. As Sedna tried to reach him, her fingers grew back, creating the beluga whales, and the orcas, and the narwhals. All the whales sprung forth from Sedna—the grays, the humpbacks, the blues, the fins, and the bowheads. As the whale song reached Sedna’s father, he at last found peace in the grace of the giant beasts.

I had the answer for my story. I needed to redeem my heroine’s father, and once I did this, then her forgiveness would ring with far more truth. I was glad to dig a little deeper into the narrative, to find something more authentic than was previously present.

As an aside, I also decided to change a character’s name during my final proof of the story. I had an Apache woman named Bly and an old teamster called Vern Blight. Bly and Blight were so similar that I was getting confused in my last read-through. So, I did a search, and replaced ‘Bly’ with ‘Smita’. This proved to be a huge nuisance because Microsoft Word replaced other words that contained ‘bly’. ‘Possibly’ became ‘possiSmita’. ‘Understandably’ became ‘understandaSmita’. I simply couldn’t search for all the permutations, so I had to proof the entire manuscript one more time. Ack! I found many—presumaSmita, incrediSmita, and, my favorite, scramSmita.

But, I did it. The Blackbird is finished and available in digital formats. I hope you’ll check it out.

Kindle | Smashwords

(It will be available at Nook, iTunes and Kobo within a few days.)

For two years, Tess Carlisle has tried to heal the mental and physical wounds of a deadly assault by one of her papá’s men, but with no contact from Hank Carlisle since the attack, she’s determined to track him down. Her only hope is bounty hunter Cale Walker, a protégé of Hank’s and a man unlike any she has ever known. As he teaches her strength not just in body but spirit, he also makes her yearn for something she vowed she never would—love. (Rating: Steamy)

Excerpt from The Blackbird

A bit of inquiry led him (Cale) to a hovel with a dirt floor and an underlying stench of sweaty bodies. It was late afternoon, but there were already many customers, mostly Mexicanos, and they eyed him warily. He ordered a bourbon and downed whatever rotgut had been substituted in one swallow, not of a mind to argue with the man serving as a barkeep behind the wooden plank.

Cale took in the lay of the room, welcoming the distraction after spending so much time with Tess. Her emotional distance, while he understood it, irritated him.

And the fact that it bothered him only annoyed him more.

He didn't need to befriend her to find Hank. He knew that. And damn it, he could be unfeeling and detached, too.

Cale set down his glass and the barkeep refilled it. Emptying it, Cale continued this routine as Tess plagued his thoughts. The twinge of attraction that gnawed at him like a coyote chewing off his foot to escape a snare made him want to save her and run from her at the same time.

After playing cards and downing more liquor than he should've, he learned of a fella who might have a lead to Worthington. In complete darkness, he managed to find the man's adobe home near the edge of town. Just as he approached, the distinctive sound of a cane hitting the dirt echoed behind him. He spun around.

“What are doing here?” he asked Tess.

She stopped before him, out-of-breath. “Trying to find you.” Her exasperated tone and narrowed eyes clearly showed her condemnation, and he felt like a school boy caught by his teacher. He stepped back before she smelled the liquor on his breath, but it was too late.

“Are you drunk?”

She moved toward him and he could smell rose oil. Damn, she smells nice. Even in the inky night, he could see the flash of anger in her eyes. He liked it. And he found it difficult to ignore the appeal of her scent, the lush curve of her mouth, the smoothness of her skin, leading from her face to her neck to...

“Just a little,” he conceded.

“Whatever on earth for?”

“It's tough for a man traveling with a woman.”

That caused her to freeze.

Damn again. He shouldn't have said that.

“Look Tess, I didn't mean it that way. It's just been a long few days.”

She stepped back and he tried not to notice how enticing her hair looked, unbound and flowing over her shoulders.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, nodding toward the dwelling.

“Following a lead on Hank.”

“Then, I'll help you.”

Cale didn't know what else to say, so he nodded. He walked to the door and knocked.

An elderly Mexican answered.

“Are you Juan?”

“Sí.”

“My name is Cale Walker, and this is Tess Carlisle.”

At that, the man peered more closely at Tess. “You Hank's girl?”

The man and Tess began conversing in Spanish. Short and wiry, gray hair sprinkled Juan’s dark hair, and deep wrinkles fanned the sides of his eyes.

“Translate please,” Cale said under his breath to Tess.

“He can show us where Henry Worthington was several months ago, in the hills to the east. Maybe Hank is with him. Juan isn’t certain.”

After more discussion, she said, “He doesn’t want money. He said Hank did a favor for him once, so he will repay his daughter. We’re to meet at the livery tomorrow morning at seven o’clock sharp.”

Juan interjected something in his native tongue.

“He says we’d better make it eight thirty,” Tess added. “You’re going to need to sleep that off.”

“I'm not drunk.”

Tess gave Cale a look that said she didn’t believe him. She shook Juan’s hand. “Gracias.”

She turned and began walking away, the cane at her side and her checkered skirt undulating around her.

Cale nodded to Juan and ran a bit to catch up to her, swaying from a bout of dizziness. “Wait for me, Tess.”

She paused. “Maybe I should let you borrow my cane.”

“No, I'll be fine. I just don't want you walking alone.”

“I came here alone.”

He fell into step beside her, focusing diligently on walking straight. “You really don't make friends easily, do you?”

“I didn't know it was important to you that we be friends.”

“Well, I don't like it when we're not getting along.”

“We've only known each other a few days, Señor Walker.”

“Now hold on.” Was he slurring his words? He couldn't be sure. “You need to call me Cale.”

“Because you call me Tess?”

“I'm supposed to call you Miss Carlisle?”

“That would be proper, wouldn't it?”

Cale laughed. “But you and I are practically related because of Hank.”

Tess stopped. “So, you see yourself as my brother?”

Hell no.

At least he had enough sense not to blurt that out.

He'd definitely had too much to drink. This rarely happened to him. He imbibed at times, but always within his boundaries.

In a flash, a hunger for this woman coursed through him. Unable to tear his gaze from hers, he wanted to set this boundary clearly. “I'm not your brother, Tess.”

Her eyes widened and her lips parted slightly, as if she were about to speak. Her momentary hesitation was all it took for Cale to know that she wasn’t immune to what was happening between them.

She knew he wanted her.

Copyright © 2015 K. McCaffrey LLC

The Grand Canyon

By Peggy L Henderson

Last month, I was on a week-long camping trip to the Grand Canyon, and missed my post. I stayed on the rim while my husband and several boyscouts backpacked into the canyon. Starting at the south rim, they covered about 50 miles in four days, hiking into the canyon, across and to the top of the north rim, then back down, across, and up the South Rim again.

This post was meant to go up last month while I was on this trip, but during the packing frenzy and getting ready, I forgot to actually hit “publish.” So, I missed my post last month, but this month, here are some interesting facts about the Grand Canyon:

1. The Grand Canyon is neither the world's longest or deepest gorge. It averages about a mile deep, and is roughly 277 miles long.

2. At its narrowest, the Grand Canyon is only 600 yards  across. At its widest, it spans 18 miles.

3. On average, the canyon is only 10 miles wide from rim to rim, but crossing by foot takes 21 miles, and driving by car is a 251-mile, five-hour trip.

4. In the 1950s, passenger flights would sometimes detour over the Grand Canyon for a better view. On June 30, 1956, two planes flying from Los Angeles to Chicago, a United Airlines DC-7 and a TWA Constellation, had both asked for permission to fly into the canyon’s air space. They collided directly over the canyon, killing everyone on board. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was created in 1958 as a result of the crash.

5. There are six species of rattlesnake found in the Grand Canyon, one of has a pink hue that matches the rocks found there. The Grand Canyon pink rattlesnake is the most common snake in the park.

6. The Paiute Indian tribe calls the canyon Kaibab, which means "mountain lying down" or "mountain turned upside down."

7. One-armed war veteran John Wesley Powell, who charted the Colorado River's course in 1891 and 1892 in a wooden boat, was the first to consistently use the name "Grand Canyon."

Peggy L Henderson is a laboratory technologist by night, and best-selling western historical and time travel romance author of the Yellowstone Romance Series, Second Chances Time Travel Romance Series, Teton Romance Trilogy, and Blemished Brides Western Historical Romance Series. When she’s not writing about Yellowstone, the Tetons, or the old west, she’s out hiking the trails, spending time with her family and pets, or catching up on much-needed sleep. She is happily married to her high school sweetheart. Along with her husband and two sons, she makes her home in Southern California. 

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