Author Talk With KT Egan

 

Personal writing has become quiet popular over the last year. More people are picking up reading as a hobby and fans are reaching out to their favorite authors. YA Romance Author KT Egan stopped by today to chat with us about being a writer.

 

I’ve taught several writing classes over the years and the most common question is regarding how an author begins and evolves. Tell us about your career in a nutshell.

KT: I’ve been writing since I was five years old. My parents were both avid readers and they had always been super supportive of me following my dreams. I have one book published and one that will be published next May.

 

I’m normally a smut miser but do enjoy any good romance. All You Hold On To is one of my favorites. I look forward to your next book. Tell us about what you write.

KT: I write contemporary romance, mainly for YA and NA audiences. I don’t think I could ever write historical fiction – I studied history and literature in parallel in college and I loved it but I don’t have the passion for historical fiction the way I do for other things.

 

Do you have a special place you like to write or any quirks when it comes to writing?

KT: Not really…I’m more of a ‘need to write while I’m inspired’ type of writer. I can write anywhere as long as I have some background noise.

 

I always have to have my tunes playing when I write. I find a lot of fans enjoy authors plays lists. Do you ever get to meet your readers?

KT: I haven’t had the chance due to the pandemic…but I’m really excited to be able to get the chance in the future.

 

I’m sure that will happen. I look forward to catching up with you at writers/readers conv. It’s great fun chatting with readers in person. I’m sure you catch up with everyone via the net tho. What is a question most people ask you?

KT: Where did I get the inspiration for the plot of the series.

 

We’ll save that answer for the interview in May. *wink, wink* What is the strangest thing you’ve Goggled while working on a story?

KT: I once Googled about eight different can designs for Folger’s coffee cans – it was a very miniscule detail to the story I was working on but something I was determined to get right.

 

They say (I’m not sure who THEY are) that good writers are good readers. What is on your TBR pile right now?

KT: A ton of ARCs from some really awesome authors, and Tinder Fella by Jennifer L. Schiff

 

Are you a daydreamer?

KT: I think that, to be a good author, you need to be a daydreamer. You need to find yourself getting lost in your head, at least every once in a while. And for me, that does seem to happen a lot – maybe a little bit more than I would wish for.

 

So true. Now to get a little silly…If we were to take a sneak peak in your purse, what would we find?

KT: Some dairy digestive pills, a ton of handsanitizer, and at least three tubes of lipstick.

 

FUN STUFF:

EBooks or Print? EBooks

Wine or beer? Neither – I’m not much of a drinker

Coffee or tea? Tea

Chocolate or vanilla? Vanilla

What is your biggest “girlish” vice? (Nails, shopping, chick flicks?) I need to have my nails done constantly.

Romantic dinner at home or dinner out? Dinner out

What is your favorite flavor or ice cream? Strawberry or vanilla

 

Thanks for joining us today, KT! 

 

Connect with KT Egan:

INSTAGRAM

TWITTER

FACEBOOK

GOODREADS

 

Make sure to check out her book, All You Hold On To.

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Aspiring author Roxanne Wortham lives a comfortable life in Las Vegas. She spends her days at her nine-to-five job and comes home to her boyfriend, Ethan, and an unfinished novel that she can’t seem to crack. Her life is simple— that is, until she gets a phone call saying that her childhood best friend and ex-boyfriend, Maverick Sterling, has been in a near-fatal car crash.

As Roxanne discovers that she still has power of attorney over his affairs, she places her life on hold and rushes to Maverick’s side in Scranton, Pennsylvania. While helping him to recover, memories of childhood and old relationships resurface, making it difficult for Roxanne to balance her new life with her old one. Roxanne is left to sort through complicated feelings from her past alongside the realization that Maverick may still have feelings for her— and even worse, she may still have feelings for him, too.

 

 

Eagle Dance

 I enjoy reading a book that takes place in a location I'm familiar with or in the same season that is out my window. Eagle Dance is set in the winter (after Christmas) when one last snow storm hits the Appalachian Mountains. The characters are from Michigan and the background to this book is an entire story of its own we'll save for another time.

Dyami Schafer, a Native American from a Michigan Chippewa tribe, leads a lonely life due to his large size and unusual appearance. When his nesting instinct sets in, he turns to Madame Eve and her 1Night Stand dating service to help him find his spirit mate. Or at least a woman who accepts him as an eagle shifter.

Amanda Collins never stopped loving the Chippewa boy she knew from her childhood. Maybe a night with a Native American man will help her forget the past and let her move on with her life.

Sometimes, it’s necessary to take a step into the past before dancing into the future. With the help of Madame Eve, will the Spirit of the Eagle carry Dyami and Amanda?

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#Thursday13 - My Birthday

My birthday was March 1 so I thought I'd share some of my day with you. The day wasn't out of the ordinary. Got up, went to work as the Township Treasurer, came home. However, throughout the day, special things happened. 

I woke up to Reyka's cute furry face demanding breakfast.

I love the silly weather app on my phone

My senior gal, Maggie, felt good enough for a morning stroll.

The view from the parking lot at work.

Side view of fire station and memorial builiding.

My co-workers love me.

Me, feeling rather sparkly.

Flyboy, hubby was on the other side of the country but sent these lovely flowers.

Detective McGuire modeled our new tactile vests

Kicking back at the end of the work day.

Come home and was greeted by Mona pretending to be a gargoyle. 

Unpacked gifts from Flyboy. Cast iron cookbook holder!

Ended the day with take-out and a Michigan wine.

At the end of the day, always look back at the little things that made you smile.

Be sure to visit #Thursday13 for more wonderful lists!

Super Cheap St. Patty's Day Read

Mimi Cates is an artist who lives over the coffee shop she owns. Content with her life, she won't allow herself to become to close with her sexy, wanderlust neighbor, despite what her heart tells her.

Irishman, Robbie Mac Donnell never wanted to stay in one place very long. His job as a scientist allowed him to travel the world without ever making permanent ties to anyone. However, when he finds the perfect person and the perfect place to settle down, he's not sure if she'll believe him.      

         

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Call Me Crazy by Melanie Harlow

 As a birthday gift to myself, I picked up a few books from my favorite rom-com authors. Of course, I started reading right away!

I read the other two books in the Bellamy Creek series as soon as they came out and the author, Melanie Harlow, didn't let me down. (Love her!) 

I suspected something was going to happen between these two characters in Make Me Yours. Sneaky author! Anyways, I loved the "out of the gates" start to the book and hang on for the ride. I certainly did hang on, I didn't put the book down... I read it all night and had a major book hangover the next day. Thanks, Melanie.

 The way the characters peeled onion-like layers from each other with their witty banter led to them slowly slide into each other's hearts. The Italian family dynamics and strong Catholic faith was a fun part of the story. 

I highly recommend this book but suggest you start reading it earlier in the day so you don't suffer from a book hangover.

If you love ...⁣
⁣
➜ Small town love stories⁣
➜ Childhood friends⁣
➜ Opposites attract⁣
➜ Hot single dads⁣
➜ Marriage-of-convenience⁣
➜ Brother's best friend heroes⁣
➜ Dirty talkers⁣
➜ Standalones⁣
➜ Romantic comedies with all the cozy feels + LOTS of heat and a side of angst with a sexy smolder...⁣
⁣

⁣Check out all the books in the Bellamy Creek series. 

Flowers!!!

Flyboy is on the other side of the country but had flowers delivered for my birthday. 

They add a bit of spring & color to my office. 

Birthday Nostalgia

While unpacking St. Patty decorations I came upon a little Hallmark book my sister gave to me on my birthday when I was very young.

I will make a point to call Ann today, inform her of my find and share a few laughs.

As I read the tiny book, I thought of what birthdays mean. Yeah, sure... they mean I'm getting older. Shut up! Other than that, come on! 

Birthdays for making wishes and feeling lovely. I like to think of things that make me feel happy.

Mom would throw a "party" for me every year with aunts, my uncle, cousins, grandmothers and best friends. 

I made a tradition of my mom telling me "my birth story". 

Feb 28, 1967 arrived between two blizzards. My sister had a friend (the neighbor girl) spending the night. Mom was sitting in her chair reading when the contractions began. She knew from her previous births, it would be awhile before I would make my appearance. . Ann and her friend were amazed with my mom and kept fussing over her with excitement. After giving Mom a hard time the next day by turning at the last minute, I eventually arrived at 9:58pm. (March 1)

The second half of my tradition with Mom was being allowed to stay up until 9:58 so we could celebrate my "birth time". Even after I became an adult, we'd be on the phone with each other at that special time.

Dad passed away when I was 27, Mom passed away in 2016. I miss that tradition. 

This year, Flyboy is in the air and the eldest sons are gone so it's just me and the Teenager. We'll order take-out and relax. Meh... good enough for me. Maybe I'll share my "birth story" with him. I'm sure I'll get an eyeroll out of him.

What do birthdays mean to you?

#WritingPrompt - Personal Landscape

     It's lovely but cold winter morning in my neck of the woods.

 I have a Writing Prompt to help encourage you to write and keep a journal. 

Sit comfortably with your notebook and pen. Write for 10 -15 minutes.


EXERCISE: PERSONAL LANDSCAPES

It's snowy winter here in Michigan 

and I have some amazing memories of growing up in my winter wonderland state. 

BFFs Trish, me, and Erin.

Picture winter in your childhood or some years back. Think of an outdoor place or landscape that was special to you. It may be a location you saw frequently, somewhere you went occasionally, or a place you visited only once. It could be a field, a road, a river, beach, playground, zoo, mountain, view from a window, the outside of a building. 

Describe the place, picking out features that were important to you. Include any sounds, colors, textures and smells you remember. Explain how you felt about the place and also how you feel as you think and write about it now.

     

Crow Magic - The Story Behind the Story

Crow Magic, is about a Native American shape shifter. 

I was asked how I attained my interest and knowledge of Native American legend and lore. My response became a story.

After the Civil War, my great-great grandfather, Gardner Avery, left his New York regiment to settle with his wife, Helen Greenleaf Kern, in a rural area near Grand Rapids, Michigan, named Jamestown. He kept a diary, which remains in the family, of his daily activities and expenses. On the land he purchased to farm, a tribe of Native Americans resided. The couple let the Potawatomi continue to live and hunt on the land.

Potawatomi Warrior

Over time they developed close friendships with many of the tribal folk. My great-great-grandmother became very close to the medicine woman of the tribe who taught her the use of herbs in food and healing. The Avery’s interest in the art of the tribe eventually led to them learning how to make the Native American pottery. Through stories shared around meals, they learned the spirituality of the Native Americans.

At the time, Grand Rapids was one of the first large scale trading posts used by the Ottawa, Potawatomi and the Chippewa. My ancestors learned valuable information from their relationships with these tribes, which lead them to have a successful farm and healthy family. Despite the Avery’s wishes, the government forced the tribe off the land and into a reservation. According to family legend, Helen and her dearest friend spent the last days together. After hugs and many tears, she stood in a field and watched the tribe travel until they were out of sight.

The information, stories, and traditions my ancestors learned have been passed down through the

generations. I grew up listening to the stories my grandmother told of visiting the farm and her grandparents. She also shared aspects of the Native American spirituality and showed us how similar it is to Christianity.

 In the 1950s, my grandparents purchased property and build a cottage on Coldwater Lake, not far from Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. We spent many summers at the cottage, where we collected arrowheads we found in the local sand pits. A Chippewa family owned a cottage near ours and “Indian Dave” would share their stories, dances, and traditions with us while we sat around a bonfire.

I could say the knowledge of herbals and spirituality lives in me because of the ties of my family with the tribes of Michigan and beginning embraced by each generation of my family.


To add to my family history, my cousin’s father was from a Seminole tribe and my brother-in-law is a descendant of a French Trader and Blackfoot Indian woman. Funny, how a person with the Welch/Swedish/German heritage I have, can be neatly blended with Native American legend and lore. Grandmother used to tell us that our legacy isn’t only family blood but also the land we live in.


I am currently working on another Native American hawk shifter from a Chippewa tribe in Michigan who is secretly in love with his commanding officer. But before he returns to his unit after recovering from an injury, he learns he has one shot to capture her heart without losing his honor.  

Lucy Richards is tired of being timid around men. Hoping to overcome her fears and feel like a real woman, she turns to Madame Eve to find a man who will fulfill that goal. Eve arranges a one-night stand with a handsome Shawnee shaman who will teach Lucy to use her womanly power and take her to unimaginable heights.

Shape shifter Seth Crowe is a Keeper of the Spiritual Law who carries souls from darkness to light, and enjoys using his body to accomplish his magic.

Tucked away in the Castillo Poconos Resort, Seth helps Lucy find spiritual and sexual freedom, never dreaming he might find his own mate in the bargain. 

   

CLICK FOR MORE CROW MAGIC

 

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The Great White North

 

Credit: Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

Under the spell of the Wintermaker

Editor’s note: This story was previously issued as an “Outdoors North” column.

By JOHN PEPIN
Michigan Department of Natural Resources

In the sunny afternoon skies, especially from this high spot, it was easy to see the beautiful white-blue blanket, stretching far across the hills, down into the ravine and up along the river.

Pulled around the trunks of the twisting cedars, the maples high on the hill and the pines standing watch over the winding little creek, this cold, snowy blanket was ironically providing warmth and insulation for all those fast asleep beneath its cover.

And with this blanket – whose thickness varied from here-to-there over the landscape – came a profound silence.

This silence was borne on the winter wind, dead or dying in a stand of hardwoods, just up above a small forest foot path etched into the hillside.

The darkness concealed within this silence can lull a person to sleep once and for all, especially if they’re cold, wet and tired. With the sunlight fading, many a person here has wondered about their measure, a good distance from the car.

Though the dying light painted an orange and purple masterpiece on the horizon, the subzero temperature continued to fall. A winter moon was on the rise, casting black reaching shadows across the blanket, under the bared arms of frozen trees.

Under these conditions, a person dry, comfortable and warm can be tempted to stay longer and longer. For as the shadows fall, a person can perceive seemingly enhanced powers of the senses within the deathly quiet of a nighttime winter woodland.

Sitting on a log, overlooking snow-covered hemlocks and cedars, it seems like you can hear the cold cracking of a tree trunk more than a mile away. Snow crunches loudly with each footstep farther into the arms of the canyon.

The stars seem clearer, brighter and closer on these frosty, silent nights – the Wintermaker glimmers and sparkles in all his frigid interstellar glory. The North Star and Milky Way seem like you might just be able to touch them.

A whiff of smoke trailing slowly from a cabin chimney way across the valley might make it to your nose, instantly warming you all over inside. It seems the taste of everything from hot chocolate and marshmallows to gingerbread, cinnamon and peppered potato soup is better out here in the deep, icy forest.

The flames from a campfire in the snow seem to burn soft, warm and deep into your body, warming you from the inside out, while the icy air leaves a pink-rose blush of cold on your cheeks.

This is the magnificent splendor of the wintertime.

I was thinking about how plants and animals contend with the harshest of nature’s seasons. It’s fascinating to think of all the mechanisms at work.

Some animals like black bears, of course, hibernate, sleeping their way through the weeks beneath the snowy blanket. Other creatures, like turtles, burrow into the mud at the bottom of a pond or river to sleep.

Some frogs hibernate underwater, while others – like spring peepers – find cracks, leaf beds or other places to tuck themselves into to hibernate. Wood frogs can survive being frozen and then thaw with the help of internal “antifreeze.”

Though above-ground portions of plants wither, shrivel and die, bulbs and root systems “rest” and live off stored food reserves until spring.

Wasp queens abandon their nests and dig into dirt, leaves or other places to hibernate for the winter. The colony dies off before the snows arrive, with a new crop of wasps to populate the colony emerging in spring.

Little brown bats retreat to the protection of caves or mines where they drop their body temperatures and slow body functions to a sleeplike state of torpor.

Some fish, like the wily trout, remain relatively active during the winter, under the ice. Other fish slow their digestion and activity.

White-tailed deer move from the deep snow cover of the north country to places miles south where they group together, huddled under dark green forest canopies to make a stand against winter’s powerful crippling forces.

Many birds simply fly away to warmer, friendlier skies, conditions gentler to their delicate constitutions. Owls remain active during the cold months, some arriving here for wintertime stays from Canada’s boreal forests or farther north. Great-horned owls are on the nest with eggs or chicks.

Still other animals, like weasels and snowshoe hares, change color from brown to white in the winter to better protect themselves from predators. Wearing their new coat, they blend in like a piece of white paper, lying across winter’s blanket.

Humans, mimicking our plant and animal brothers and sisters, adopt many of these natural measures – or a combination of them – to survive the wintertime ourselves.

Some of us, like the warblers and the bluebirds, fly away to warmer places during some or all the winter, or we too change our coats to adapt effectively to the cold and snow of the season.

Others remain active with all sorts of winter activities outdoors, embracing the season, loping along the snow- and ice-covered trails, like wolves and moose.

A lot of us – to varying degrees – burrow into crevices, warm leaf beds or other warm places, lowering our heart rates and slowing down our bodily functions. “Please don’t wake me, no don’t shake me, leave me where I am, I’m only sleeping.”

Looking down at the blanket – bluer and bluer as the light dims – I wondered where I fit in. Years ago, I was like a summer bird, chasing a fetching mate, as I flew to the south and the west to the land of sunny skies – California dreaming.

However, as time passed by and the seasons changed, I returned to the cold, snow and winds of winter, favoring a life here again among the great north woods.

I wear a warmer coat in the wintertime. Some days, I like to get up and around outside to see what’s going on, like a young coyote.

Other times, like the frogs, I retreat underwater or to another quiet, dark place to hibernate. Here, in a warm winter nest padded with warm grasses – fat on food resources – I sleep and twitch as I dream small animal dreams.

I wait for the big gears of the universe to turn the world around, pushing the clock and the calendar to a sunny spring day, when I will re-emerge into the sunlight, like a beautiful damselfly with new wings.

With the hour late, I headed back down the snowy trail. Each boot step brought me closer to home, as the dark blue-black skies ignited with a shower of sparks from a meteor, trailing off as it spun and sputtered into the wintry night.

Check out previous Showcasing the DNR stories in our archive at Michigan.gov/DNRStories. To subscribe to upcoming Showcasing articles, sign up for free email delivery at Michigan.gov/DNR.