Excerpt from STRAYS by Jennifer Caloyeras

It's my pleasure to welcome Jennifer Caloyeras, author of Strays (published by Ashland Creek Press in May) back to WOA. Today, Jennifer shares the following excerpt from Chapter 5 of Strays (with permission of the publisher). ~ Sheila 

Synopsis: Sixteen-year-old Iris Moody has a problem controlling her temper, but then, she has a lot to be angry about. Dead mother. Workaholic father. Dumped by her boyfriend. Failing English. 

When a note in Iris's journal is mistaken as a threat against her English teacher, she finds herself in trouble not only with school authorities but with the law. 

In addition to summer school, dog-phobic Iris is sentenced to an entire summer of community service, rehabilitating troubled dogs. Iris believes she is nothing like Roman, the three-legged pit bull who is struggling to overcome his own dark past, not to mention the other humans in the program. But when Roman's life is on the line, Iris learns that counting on the help of others may be the only way to save him.

In this scene, Iris meets Roman for the first time.

Apparently my time in court had been more exhausting than I had realized—it was way past noon when I finally opened my eyes. Luckily summer school didn’t start until the next week.

Was it all a dream, or had I really been assigned to community service work involving dogs? I forced myself out of bed and listened to Mr. Spencer’s chipper voice on the machine again. To my major disappointment, it wasn’t all a bad dream.

It was my reality.

There was hardly any coffee left in the pot (it was as though Dad were trying to punish me by finishing it all himself). I grabbed a pair of dirty jeans off the floor and threw on a sweatshirt. The dogs wouldn’t care about my appearance. If I could just explain to whomever was in charge that I was absolutely the wrong person for this job, maybe they’d let me do office work or something in order to fulfill my community service requirement.

At Zachary’s, my favorite breakfast spot on Pacific Avenue, I ordered their largest to-go cup of coffee. Even though the brew was better at Pergolesi, there was no way I was going to risk running into Ashley there. So much for my summer of free coffee.

I had the fortunate talent of being able to ride a bike one-handed so that my other hand could be free to swat at mosquitoes, gesticulate at bad drivers, or drink a cup of coffee.

Picking up speed down toward Ocean Avenue, I took a right, pedaling fast past families of bikers on vacation.

“Slow down!” a protective dad yelled.

But this was my bike lane. I couldn’t help but count the number of dogs I passed as I zoomed by. Ten, eleven, twelve...ugh. They were everywhere. Ubiquitous, as Mrs. Schneider would say. (There were a few things I learned in school that year; for some reason, vocab stuck.)

When I got to Natural Bridges State Beach, I locked my bike to a stop sign post and raced full speed ahead to the community center. Why couldn’t this gig have been somewhere private where we wouldn’t be susceptible to public scrutiny? Would everyone who walked past know we were convicts? Or would they just think we were training our pets? If they made us wear fluorescent orange uniforms like those guys who picked up trash on the side of the road I would be so mortified. My palms started to sweat when I saw a circle of teens holding leashes attached to various-sized dogs. I recognized only one of the figures, standing there with a German shepherd. It was Hoodie Boy from school—part of that group that was always getting into trouble. I had now sunk to his level. His sweatshirt, as usual, was still drawn tightly around his face. I was so embarrassed to know someone there.

I slowed down my frantic pace, now trying to take as long as possible to avoid having to participate.

“You must be Iris!” a guy shouted from across the grass. “Come on over!” He waved me toward him. Everyone stared. I suddenly became self-conscious about everything: my hair, my walk, my choice of clothing. Were my arms swinging too much? Too little? I put my

head down so my hair covered my face. I didn’t want anyone to be able to “read me.”

“We were just getting acquainted. I’m Kevin.” He put his hand out. I had no choice but to shake it.

Kevin was not what I expected a dog rehabilitator to look like. He resembled a surfer more than anything else: long blond hair, super-tanned physique.

“Since you’re late...”

“It wasn’t my fault,” I lied, ready to make up some excuse about my dad losing my bike-lock key.

“Everyone got a chance to choose their dogs already,” Kevin said.

“Hey, I didn’t get a choice!” said a huge, towering boy in an oversized plaid jacket and baggy pants that made him look even bigger.

“Randy, you did have a choice,” said Kevin.

“Yeah, between the Chihuahua and the peg leg. Lesser of two evils,” said Randy.

At the end of Randy’s red leash was the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen—even worse than the dog I’d had to watch at the beach a few weeks earlier. The Chihuahua’s fur was tattered, and it had an exaggerated underbite.

A girl with wild hair laughed at Randy. “You two are like yin and yang.”

They all laughed.

I took stock of my surroundings. Two girls. Two guys. And me. That made five of us suffering through the same summer stint. What had each of them done to land themselves here? And were they wondering the same about me?

“Let’s go around and introduce ourselves,” said Kevin.          

“Again?” complained Hoodie Boy. It was the first time I had actually heard him speak.
“I’m Kevin, your fearless leader. I’m here to help you train your

dog. But more on that later. As you know, you all are now members of the most coveted community service gig out there. We like to keep the group small so you get a chance to really bond with your animal.”

Was this guy for real? I’d rather bond with a snake...a slug...a tarantula.

“I’m Randy, and I hope I don’t fall on my dog because it won’t survive.” The Chihuahua yapped away.

“Do you remember your dog’s name?” asked Kevin. “Tinkerbelle,” he said. “This is so ridiculous.”

At least I wasn’t the only one who felt this way.

Next to Randy was a girl with a funky haircut: her brown hair

long in front and short in back, with pink highlights. She wore a big army-green shirt that looked like it had gotten into a fight with a pair of scissors and lost. A quote on a patch sewn to her knee read, Property is theft.

“I’m Talbot, and this dog here is Garrett. He’s part Doberman, part retriever.” The dog licked her face, and I could feel myself start to have a panic attack. “And all love.”

“Shelley,” said the quiet brunette. “Bruce,” she added as she looked down at the bulldog licking itself at her feet.

Last but not least was Hoodie Boy. His legs were tangled up in his dog’s leash. “The dog is named Persia. German shepherd, right?”

Kevin nodded.

“And I’m Oak and I really don’t want to be here.”

For some reason I was taken aback to learn that Hoodie Boy

actually had a real name other than what the girls and I had been calling him for so long.

The girls. I wondered what Ashley and Sierra were doing at this very moment. I was jealous of their freedom to have a summer break. “No one wants to be here,” said Randy, as though reading my mind.

“I think it’s fun!” said Talbot, leaning down to kiss her dog.

So gross.

The long silence made me fidgety. What were we supposed to

do now?

“Hello?” said Talbot.
Was she talking to me?
“It’s your turn,” said Kevin, gesturing toward me.
Before I could get my name out, Hoodie Boy said, “That’s Iris.”

I couldn’t believe that he knew my name. Then I remembered that Kevin had called it out when I’d first arrived; also, word had probably spread about what I’d done at school. Most likely Oak had already shared my crime with the entire group.

“Yeah, I’m Iris, and I don’t have a dog. Which is totally fine by me.”

“Oh yes, you do,” said Randy. “You have my sloppy seconds.” Everyone laughed but me.

“Let me run and get him,” said Kevin, and he took off toward

the community building. He emerged moments later, dog on leash. “Iris, this is Roman. He is a pit bull.”

My heart raced. The week before, I had watched a show called World’s Most Dangerous Pets. And pit bulls were number one on the list, which, after what happened to my mom, didn’t surprise me in the least. They were killing machines. And when they weren’t killing people, surely they were thinking about killing them.

The compact brown dog on the other end of Kevin’s leash looked like a bicep with legs and had an expression on his face like he was hungry. For flesh. Kevin extended the leash out toward me, but when I reached for it, my hands shook so badly I had to put them back at my side.

Jennifer Caloyeras is a novelist and short fiction writer living in Los Angeles. She holds a B.A. In English from the University of California at Santa Cruz, an M.A. in English Literature from California State University Los Angeles and an M.F.A. in creative writing through the University of British Columbia.            

Her short stories have been published in Monday Night Literary, Wilde Magazine, Storm Cellar and Booth. She has been a college instructor, elementary school teacher and camp counselor. She is the dog columnist for the Los Feliz Ledger and the Larchmont Ledger.

Links of interest: 

·         Jennifer's website.

·         Strays on Amazon.

·         Twitter - @JenCaloyeras

·         Facebook fan page.

·         Instagram - Jennifercaloyeras

·         Goodreads page.

5 Surprising things about Santa Cruz, California

by Jennifer Caloyeras, author of Strays

For the backdrop to my novel, Strays, I wanted a serene scene to juxtapose against all of the tension in my novel about a girl with anger management issues who gets sentenced to a summer rehabilitating aggressive dogs. I chose the beautiful city of Santa Cruz, California, located on the coast just above Monterey and just below San Francisco. Here are some things you might not know about this wonderful city!

1. I went to college there. Yup! I attended U.C.S.C. and majored in literature (no shocker there.) But did you know that U.C. Santa Cruz’s mascot is a banana slug?

2. Want to play? The Santa Cruz Board is a famous landmark built in 1907, filled with rides and games. It was also the backdrop to the movie The Lost Boys.

3. Surf’s up! Santa Cruz is often voted number one for best surf spot in the United States . It boasts more than 40 miles of coast and at least 70 places to surf! (I never surfed, in case you’re wondering – I’m too afraid of sharks.)

4. The trees are incredible! Santa Cruz is nestled in the middle of Redwood forests, which makes is such a beautiful city with great hiking just a few miles away. Big Basin Redwoods State Park is home to the largest collection of Ancient Coast Redwoods south of San Francisco.

5. Monarch Migration. Hundreds of thousands of monarch butterflies choose to rest in Santa Cruz during their fall migration. Every year, they stop at Natural Bridges State Beach and rest from fall to winter. I’ve visited them before and it is truly a magical site! On cold days, they cover the nearby eucalyptus trees like a blanket. But when the fog lifts, it’s like a butterfly explosion!

Jennifer Caloyeras is a novelist and short fiction writer living in Los Angeles. She holds a B.A. In English from the University of California at Santa Cruz, an M.A. in English Literature from California State University Los Angeles and an M.F.A. in creative writing through the University of British Columbia.            

Her short stories have been published in Monday Night Literary, Wilde Magazine, Storm Cellar and Booth. She has been a college instructor, elementary school teacher and camp counselor. She is the dog columnist for the Los Feliz Ledger and the Larchmont Ledger.

Links of interest: 

• Jennifer's website.
• Strays on Amazon.
• Twitter - @JenCaloyeras
• Facebook fan page.
• Instagram - Jennifercaloyeras
• Goodreads page.

Interview with Author M.P. Barker

Tell us a little about your background.

I like to tell people I’m a time traveler. No, I’m not delusional (well, okay, maybe a little), but I spent eight years as a historical interpreter at Old Sturbridge Village, a living history museum that portrays 19^th-century rural New England. That means I dressed in costume and basically lived in the 1830s for 40 hours a week. If you came to the Village in the 1980s or 1990s and saw someone covered in manure, sour milk, and dirt, that was probably me. I mucked out barns, milked cows, weeded gardens, made butter and cheese, and dyed wool, to list just a few of my chores. The great thing about the job was that it gave me the perfect background to write two historical novels, A Difficult Boy (Holiday House, 2008) and Mending Horses (Holiday House, 2014), which are set in New England in 1839. When one of my characters has to sit down and milk a cow, I can honestly say I know just how he or she feels—the character, not the cow, that is.

Tell us a bit about your latest book.

Mending Horses is about three misfits—a peddler, a young runaway, and an Irish horse whisperer—who mend each other’s broken lives as they heal a traveling circus’s mistreated ponies. My agent calls it a “family-friendly Water for Elephants.” The story takes place when the American circus was just beginning to evolve into its present form, so the research was lots of fun. In addition to traveling circuses, the storyline explores the challenges faced by Irish immigrants who came to New England to build factories and railroads. There’s also a little romance, a feisty female character, and lots and lots of horses.

The story focuses on Daniel, a sixteen-year-old Irish boy who’s newly freed from indentured servitude. Seeking guidance and companionship, Daniel joins Jonathan Stocking, a peddler and roving jack-of-all-trades who invites Daniel to join him and his assistant, eleven-year-old Billy Fogarty, a reformed pickpocket with a hauntingly beautiful singing voice, who is fleeing an abusive father. The trio joins a circus run by Fred Chamberlain, an old friend of Mr. Stocking’s. When an incompetent trainer abandons the show’s six “dancing ponies,” Daniel discovers his own talents as a horse whisperer, not “breaking” the animals, but mending the damage their previous trainer had done to them. Meanwhile, Fred transforms Billy into “Billy McBride, the boy with the voice of an angel,” the company’s star vocalist. With Mr. Stocking guiding Daniel’s training efforts and coaching Billy’s singing, the three grow from traveling companions into a peculiar sort of family. But past secrets catch up with them, bringing danger and heartbreak.

How do you construct your plots? Do you outline or do you write “by the seat of your pants”?

I’m definitely a “pantser.” I usually start out with a character and a situation, and just keep playing around with it until the characters start to take on their own voices, and it begins to feel as though they’re dictating the story to me. But for the longest time, I have no idea where the story is going. Once I’ve gotten the story about halfway written and have an idea of the ending, then I make an outline so I can see where I need to fill in holes and make connections.

Which do you consider more important, plot or character?

Character, definitely. I’d rather read a book with a mediocre plot and great characters than one with lame characters and an exciting plot. I believe that plot often comes from character—after all, it’s the characters’ personalities that govern what they do, which is what creates the plot. As a writer, I always start with a character, then try sticking the character into different situations to see what will happen and how his or her personality will develop.

Tell us about your pets, or other animals that inspire you.

Midnight and Barker.

I’ve been lucky to have three wonderful dogs in my life—all of them second-hand. Our first was a Beagle mix, the second a Golden Retriever, and our current dog is a black Lab/Shepherd mix named Midnight. He’s not a great fan of my writing, though, and tends to heave major sighs when I’m working away for hours at “the box” (that’s what he calls my computer). He loves to rest his chin on my hand while I’m typing and say, “Look, there’s a beautiful dog here who’s being ignored.”

Where can we learn more about you and your books?

You can find out more by checking out my website – www.mpbarker.net

M.P. Barker is the award-winning author of two historical novels set in 19^th-century New England—A Difficult Boy (Holiday House, 2008) and Mending Horses (Holiday House, 2014). A Difficult Boy received awards from PEN New England and the International Reading Association, and Mending Horses is a Kirkus Prize nominee. Her background includes work at Old Sturbridge Village, a living history museum, where she experienced 19^th-century New England life firsthand. You can find out more at her website – www.mpbarker.net

M.P. Barker on Riding and Writing

Horses play a central role in my historical novels A Difficult Boy and Mending Horses. In the first book, a horse helps two indentured servants overcome their differences and outwit their tyrannical master. In the second, horses help heal the broken lives of three misfits—a peddler, a young runaway, and an Irish horse whisperer--who join a traveling circus in 19^th-century New England.  

I guess that’s only natural; as a kid I was one of those horsey girls. I read every Black Stallion book I could get my hands on. I cut horse pictures out of magazines and played with them the way my sister played with paper dolls. I assembled a make-believe horse of old trunks and suitcases in the basement and pretended to be National Velvet leaving the competition in the dust. Long before My Little Pony, my favorite toys were my plastic horses. I followed televised races passionately, falling in love with Secretariat and weeping inconsolably when the beautiful filly Ruffian died in 1975.

The only thing missing from my passion for horses was an actual horse. My family could afford neither horse nor riding lessons, so the occasional trail ride was the closest I ever came to the fantasy horses galloping through my imagination. Then I went to college and put away my horsey dreams. It wasn’t until my late twenties that I could finally afford to take riding lessons. Frankly, as an adult learner, I stank. Much as I enjoyed working with horses, I had the hardest time getting the feel for riding. I could tuck in my elbows, keep my heels down, hold my posture, and keep a light hand on the reins until the cows came home, but I didn’t really connect with the horse the way I’d read about in my favorite novels.

Then the stable hired a new instructor, who had an intuitive method of teaching. She showed me how to feel with my entire body what the horse was doing, to relax into the horse’s motion and communicate with my legs, my seat, my hands, in a way that none of her predecessors had shown me. While previous instructors had focused on showing me how to control the horse, she showed me how to listen to the horse. And all of a sudden, I could actually ride—not just sit on a horse without falling off. What had been a challenge became a joy, and I finally understood what the connection between horse and rider was supposed to feel like.

It wasn’t until Sheila invited me to guest-blog here that I realized how many similarities there were between my experiences with riding and writing. In addition to my horsey fantasies, I enjoyed childhood dreams of becoming a novelist. But as with riding, I set that fantasy aside. I did write non-fiction as part of various jobs. But those were mostly “just-the-facts-ma’am” projects, with minimal creativity required. It wasn’t until my thirties that I decided to give fiction another whirl—not as a prospective profession, but as a hobby, the way one might take up knitting or woodworking…or horseback riding.

Unlike my first experiences with riding lessons, though, fortunately my first attempts at writing didn’t stink (at least not too badly!). Instead, I discovered the same sense of rightness that I’d felt when I’d finally gotten the feel for a horse. It was as though I’d been plodding along with the non-fiction writing I’d done in the past, and all of a sudden fiction allowed me to break into a lovely, soaring canter.

For me, the relationship between story and writer is very much like the relationship between horse and rider. It seems that the harder I try to control the story, the harder it is to connect with it. Like a horse, the story moves more smoothly when I relax a little, when I strive more for guidance than control. I’ve found that writing involves a lot of listening to my characters, even letting them have their heads at times. And when everything goes just right, there are sudden joyful breakthroughs when the story gallops along, and all I have to do is hang on and enjoy the ride.

I still don’t have my own horse, and probably never will. But I got to create a fantasy horse in Ivy, the mare at the heart of both my novels. So I guess, in a way, fulfilling my writing dreams fulfilled my riding dreams at the same time. As an author, I can have all the horses I want for free, right there on the tip of my pen—and no need to muck out the barn after I’m done with them.   

M.P. Barker is the award-winning author of two historical novels set in 19^th-century New England—A Difficult Boy (Holiday House, 2008) and Mending Horses (Holiday House, 2014). A Difficult Boy received awards from PEN New England and the International Reading Association, and Mending Horses is a Kirkus Prize nominee. Her background includes work at Old Sturbridge Village, a living history museum, where she experienced 19^th-century New England life firsthand. 

You can find out more at her website – www.mpbarker.net

Excerpt: Close Call by Susanna J. Sturgis

Susanna and Rhodry (1994–2008),
who inspired Pixel.

Susanna J. Sturgis is a freelance editor by trade and a writer by avocation. She blogs about writing and editing at Write Through It and about year-round Martha's Vineyard, where she lives at From the Seasonally Occupied Territories. Her first novel, The Mud of the Place (Speed-of-C Productions, 2008), included a much younger Pixel. This is an excerpt from her novel in progress.

~~~

As they rolled down twisty Tiah's Cove Road, Pixel climbed over Glory and stuck most of her head out the window. "Pixel!" yelled Glory. "You're wet!" On their walk, Pixel, a Malamute mix, had wandered off the trail several times to go wading in the adjacent pond.

Looking in the rearview mirror, Shannon slowed the car down to a near crawl. Glory was looking where Pixel's nose was pointing.

A big gray dog with a mostly white face was trotting loose and unaccompanied through the woods, a few yards in from the road.

Like wolves at Yellowstone, Shannon thought. Beautiful.

It had to be the Morrises' Alaskan Malamute, who was suspected of killing several hens and a lamb in recent months. In that moment the dog started to run, a long, loping run. "Shit," Shannon muttered. Just ahead of the running dog was a dirt side road, and at the end of that road was Everett Judd's farm. Everett Judd had no patience with dogs hassling his livestock. Everett Judd was a crackerjack shot.

Shannon pulled a U-turn in the middle of the road. "Try and keep him in sight," she said to Glory.

Glory and Pixel had already switched windows.

After turning down the dirt road, Shannon spotted the dog up ahead. He had a long head start but had slowed to a trot. The Judd farmhouse was still fifty yards ahead when he turned off the shady road to follow a post-and-rail fence. Shannon spotted sheep midway across the open field, and a pond glittering through scrub oak trees at the far end. Shit shit shit.

"Stay with Pixel, OK?" she told Glory.

"OK," said the girl, putting an arm around the old dog.

Shannon scooped Pixel's leash up off the floor and took off after the dog, stumbling over every clump of weeds, every depression in the ground.

The dog paused, looked back at her, then continued along the fence line. When Shannon gained a little ground, he trotted a little faster.

The sheep had stopped grazing. One of them bleated. The big dog hung a hard left where the fence turned a corner; he started to lope. Shannon was already twenty feet behind. Way up ahead and off to the left a screen door slammed.

Travvy - aka
ARCHX Masasyu's Fellow Traveller
RL2X, RL3, P-CRO-IV, RA, CGC --
on whom the unnamed dog in
 the story is based

Everett Judd was headed her way. He was carrying a shotgun. When he got to the gate, he used his free hand to raise the looped chain that held it closed. Passing through, he advanced across the pasture, sighting once as he walked. The sheep were freaking out but being sheep couldn't figure out which way to run. The dog was still outside the fence.

When Shannon caught up with him, he was trying frantically to squeeze through, but the rails were too close together and he didn't fit. Hoping the stitch in her side wasn't the beginning of a heart attack, she reached for his neck with one hand, hoping there was a collar under all that fur. He snarled at her, lips pulled back from very impressive teeth.

The sheep were finally making a beeline for the farthest corner of the field. The dog was going nuts trying to follow them.

Across the pasture Glory was running along the fence. "Don't shoot," she was screaming. In a flash she'd climbed the fence and dropped down on the inside. She kept running toward the man with the shotgun. "Don't shoot!"

The barrel of the gun come up slightly as Judd turned to see what was coming, then pointed toward the ground. The dog was briefly distracted by the commotion; Shannon made a loop of Pixel's leash and dropped it over his head, then pulled it snug around his neck. When he looked at her this time, she saw recognition in those almond-shaped brown eyes. He was a dog, not a wolf; she was a human, not a dog. She tugged him back from the fence.

"That your dog?" Judd asked, looking from her to Glory and back again.

"No," Shannon started to explain. "I--"

"I told 'em I'd shoot that dog if he showed up again," he said. The man was medium height and wiry, gray-haired and -bearded. He could probably run from here to town without breathing hard. "I could still shoot 'im. Dog like that's nothing but trouble."

I'll do you a favor, he was saying, and we'll all be better off. With the dog's snarling fangs fresh in her mind she half agreed with him. "Not now," she said. "Sorry about this."

Glory was watching and listening, stock still.

Shannon turned toward the car, giving the captive a mild tug on the leash. He dug in his paws and growled. She glanced involuntarily at Judd, who stood watching. Think smart, Shannon. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a tube of the string cheese that Pixel liked so much, and bit a piece off the end. She crinkled the wrapper. The dog sat down, wagging his tail on the grass. She offered him the piece of cheese. He started to snap at it. "Uh-uh," she said, pulling her hand back. She offered it again. He took it -- not quite softly, but at least she still had all her fingers.

"We'll see," she said, biting another piece off. To Everett Judd she said, "Thanks again," then she and Glory headed for the car with the big dog trotting between them.

Horse Crazy Kid = Horse Crazy Author

by J.A. Campbell

I’ve always been something of a dreamer, a ‘what if’ sort of gal, if you will. What if I had a horse so smart I could talk to it? What if I could travel to other worlds and have adventures? What if I could actually write a novel and sell it? That last one, I think is the most fantastical of them all.

However, being a dreamer, the impossibility of those above ideas never really stopped me. Nine and a half years ago, I got my own horse. I swear she was smart enough to hold conversations with, and she was certainly smart enough to travel to other worlds with me in tow and create adventures. I just had to be smart enough to listen, and put her ideas to paper.

Sabaska’s Tale is a novel inspired by my life on the trail and my horse and turned into a fantasy novel. And before you ask, no, I’m not the MC, but my horse, Sabaska, is the main horse character, also called Sabaska. Much of this story came about on my many adventures with my her. It didn’t take much effort to translate our adventures into something far more interesting than a trail ride in the mountains, it just took writing it down.

I’ve been told that my passion for horses and Sabaska in particular really comes out in this story. That pleases me and I think that because we had so many adventures in our 9 years together, it gave me the depth and experience to write a something that does display my passion and knowledge of horses and I hope it inspires others to have adventures with their horses and maybe even turn their adventures into more novels for horse crazy teens to read.

I don’t actually know how the horse bug bit me, but it did. As long as I can remember I’ve been riding horses. My parents let me do pony rides and trail rides as a kid and as soon as I got big enough they let me take lessons relatively frequently. There’s a barn close to where I grew up and I learned to ride English-style on Saddlebreds. I took lessons until I got to high school and then I got too busy and horses kind of went on a back burner. However, when I went to college in Colorado they came flooding back into my life. There were horses everywhere and I was going crazy that I couldn’t ride. Finally I found someone with a few too many horses and she let me ride with her, and learn from her and that’s where I met Sabaska.

She was basically half wild and barely trained. As I worked with her, teaching her that people were kind of cool, and learning from both her and my friend what it was to train a horse, I fell in love. Eventually I decided it was time to have my own horse and I wanted Sabaska. I bought her and moved her closer to my home so I could work with her every day. Progress went quickly. Sabaska had an eager and willing mind and she enjoyed doing things with me. I discovered endurance racing and decided that was the sport for us. This discovery set me and Sabaska on hundreds of miles of trails and adventure, which inspired this story. Sabaska was an amazing horse, as you’ll discover if you read the novel. A lot of her personality comes through in the fictional Sabaska. She was brave and bold and I couldn’t have had a better companion. One day while we were out riding I realized it really felt like we were in a different world and this sparked a story idea. What if I really was traveling to a different world? I wrote this book knowing it was the book I wanted to read when I was a kid, but didn’t exist. Hopefully it will find its way into the hands of horse crazy teens and inspire them to fantastical adventures on their own horses.

I lost Sabaska in 2012 to colic, but our adventures live on in these stories. She’ll never be replaced, but she gave me so many valuable gifts and lessons and the joy of having that special bond with a horse that I’ve never seen matched with any other creature.

J.A. Campbell has been many things over the last few years, from college student, to bookstore clerk and an over the road trucker. She’s worked as a 911 dispatcher and in computer tech support, but through it all she’s been a writer and when she’s not out riding horses, she can usually be found sitting in front of her computer. She lives in Colorado with her three cats, her vampire-hunting dog Kira, her new horse and Traveler-in training, Triska, and her Irish Sailor. She is the author of many Vampire and Ghost-Hunting Dog stories and the young adult urban fantasy series The Clanless. She’s the editor of Steampunk Trails fiction magazine and a member of both the Horror Writers Association and the Dog Writers Association of America.

Find out more about Julie at  www.writerjacampbell.com  and follow her on twitter @Pfirewolf

Website: www.writerjacampbell.com                                                        

Blogs: http://writerjacampbell.wordpress.com/blog/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/J.A.Campbell.Author

A Cat by Any Other Name

by Lois Winston

Shortly after my husband and I became a couple, a stray cat wandered onto our friends’ property and gave birth to a litter of kittens. When Mama Cat subsequently lost her life to a speeding car, we became the proud adoptive parents of two kittens from that litter. We named one Bulldog McNurkle and the other Grayface. For the life of me, I can’t remember the reason behind the names. Stranger still, Grayface somehow morphed into Frog.

Like all babies, no matter the species, kittens are not born with fully developed motor skills. This fact was made clear to me one day while I was taking a bath. Frog nosed open the bathroom door, jumped up onto the tub ledge, and proceeded to lose his footing, falling into the water. Before I could scoop him up, he used my back as a ladder to climb his way out. I think I still have scars from his claws.

While still kittens, one of Bulldog’s and Frog’s favorite pastimes was to race across the living room, take a flying leap, and claw up our drapes. One day my husband and I came home from work to find the drapes in shreds. The cats had grown too heavy for the fabric to support their weight.

Another time we arrived home to find defrosted pork chops sitting on the living room floor. Because we had a galley kitchen open to the living room, I used to put frozen food in the spare bedroom to defrost. On that particular day, I apparently hadn’t made sure the door was securely latched. You’d think I would have learned my lesson after the bathtub incident.

Unfortunately, after several years of progressively worsening allergies that eventually caused me to develop bronchial asthma, we found it necessary to find new parents for our boys. Cats haven’t been part of our family for many years, yet they often play a role – usually a comical one – in my fiction.

In my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, my protagonist’s much-married mother claims to descend from Russian royalty. Her extremely corpulent white Persian cat is named Catherine the Great. And believe me, she’s every inch the reincarnation of her namesake – proud, regal, demanding, and not one to suffer fools – or dogs – lightly. This causes all sorts of mayhem in the Pollack household where Mama is forced to share a bedroom with Anastasia’s communist mother-in-law and her dog, aptly named Manifesto. Catherine the Great and Manifesto get along as well as their two owners. In other words, they fight like...well, like cats and dogs. Or Russian royalty and Bolsheviks.

You’ll find Catherine the Great strutting her stuff in all four of the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries – Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun, Death by Killer Mop Doll, Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, and Decoupage Can Be Deadly.

In Hooking Mr. Right, a romantic comedy I wrote under my Emma Carlyle pen name, you’ll find Cu (short for Cupid,) a punk-rock looking alley cat.

After writing a doctoral thesis that exposed fraud in the pop-psychology genre, thirty-two year old professor Althea Chandler has to sacrifice her professional integrity to save her family from financial disaster. She secretly becomes best-selling romance guru Dr. Trulee Lovejoy, a self-proclaimed expert on how to catch a man, even though Thea’s a miserable failure when it comes to relationships – especially those with the opposite sex.

Burned by a failed marriage, Luke Bennett finds himself pursued by Dr. Lovejoy toting women after a gossip columnist dubs him New York’s most eligible bachelor. When he at first mistakes Thea for one of the women out to snare him, sparks fly, but the two soon find themselves battling sparks of a less hostile nature, thanks in part to the aforementioned alley cat.

Luke believes he’s finally found an honest woman. Unfortunately, Thea is anything but honest. She’s got more secrets than the CIA and a desperate gossip columnist out to expose her. Cupid definitely has his work cut out for him, but like all cats, he’s got a mind of his own. And he’s not about to let human stubbornness stand in the way of a happy ending.

Award-winning author Lois Winston writes the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series featuring magazine crafts editor and reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack. She’s also published in women’s fiction, romance, romantic suspense, and non-fiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Lois is also an award-winning crafts and needlework designer and an agent with the Ashley Grayson Literary Agency. Visit her at http://www.loiswinston.com, visit Emma at http://www.emmacarlyle.com, and visit Anastasia at the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers character blog, www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com.