• Stories on my favorite 2012 RITA and Golden Heart nominees
• Info on my upcoming release, Cowboy Crazy
• A sneak peek of the cover for Cowboy Tough, coming in January 2013
• A look at how one rodeo cowboy spends his time out of the arena making a difference
• A glimpse of my writing space
• A recommendation for a new author I think you’ll all enjoy.

If you’d like to receive the newsletter, you can click on the contact link above and send your e-mail address. I’ll put you on the mailing list and you’ll receive news of new releases and invitations to our next launch party in Cheyenne as well as the newsletter.

And here’s the latest cowboy picture for my readers. This was taken at Frontier Days in 2011.

I presented two workshops – one on “Rejection and Submission” and one on “Crafting a Resonant Ending.” It was great to mix and mingle with writers again, and audiences were attentive and asked great questions that really added to the content.

This particular conference meant a lot to me as it marks my return to the world of conferences. 2011 was a difficult year health-wise, and I was unable to travel much. I wasn’t sure how I’d hold up even now, but the energy of being with like-minded people made it a great experience. Hanging out with my friend Lynn Carlson was an added bonus, and meeting some new Cheyenne writers was an unexpected gift.

I also attended two great workshops, one from Sandi Ault, the author of the “Wild” mystery series. Her “P2″ formula reminded me of some important elements of writing that I’m putting into practice ASAP, and the lovely “blessing” she offered at the end of her sessions is still with me – I can feel it! I’m hoping Sandi comes up and visits Cheyenne for Frontier Days this summer. She’d be a great rodeo sidekick with those drop-dead gorgeous Lucchesse boots!

The other workshop I attended was presented by Cricket McRae, author of the Home Crafting Mysteries. Her ideas on “Getting to Know Your Characters” had me scribbling notes like crazy, and the exercises she gave us brought some beautiful writing from the attendees.

Jim Davidson, co-author of “The Ledge,” gave us a truly inspiring keynote speech, using his incredible survival story to help us be more adventurous in our writing and find the unexpected paths that lead to the life we’re meant to live.

And conference chair Kerrie Flanagan, along with a very capable squadron of Ambassadors, held it all together and made the whole experience memorable. My only regret is that I couldn’t attend more of the workshops and meet more of the writers!

I don’t know how long the contact link was broken. I had noticed mail from readers had dropped off, and I assumed it was due to the usual lull between books. Tall Dark and Cowboy came out in November, and Cowboy Crazy won’t hit the shelves until June.

But the day we fixed the contact form, I received several messages from readers. Now I’m wondering how many I missed! Maybe there wasn’t a lull after all. After all, Tall, Dark and Cowboy was on a cashwrap display at Barnes & Noble this past month, and it also made their list of top cowboy romances. I was so excited about both events; being on a display with my friends Carolyn Brown and C.H. Admirand was fantastic, and I was flattered to be on B&N buyer Jules Herbert’s list with writers like Linda Lael Miller, Jodi Thomas, and Diana Palmer.

Meanwhile, I’m working hard on Cowboy Tough. The manuscript is written, but I believe good writing requires lots and lots of rewriting, so I’ll be editing all day every day for the remainder of March. I’ll also be trying to check in a little more often here on the website. As many of you know, I had neck surgery in August that made it difficult to spend much time at the computer, but I’m getting better and it’s great to be able to write all day again!

With the release of Tall, Dark and Cowboy on November 1st, Sourcebooks is sending me around the (virtual) world on a whirlwind blog tour of all the best romance sites on the web! Most sites are offering a giveaway as well. If you’re interested in winning free books (and who isn’t?), just stop by and follow the instructions to win.

Here’s the schedule with links to my posts (links for future posts will be updated as we go):

Joanne Kennedy – Tall, Dark and Cowboy

I felt really comfortable in my new outfit from Dress Barn. The retail staff in Cheyenne is great.
 

KGWN TV Morning Show, Joanne Kennedy discussing Tall, Dark & Cowboy (after the commercial jump).

I’m also giving away two copies on the Casablanca Authors blog. To win, just go to the blog (here) and answer this question:

What’s the most unusual place you’ve ever kissed/made out/made love? If it’s a car, I want make and model. Otherwise, just dish on a few select details!

Note: You must answer the question in the comments on the Casablanca blog to win – not on this blog post. Thanks!

Freelance reporter and fiction writer Susan Gray Gose, who lives in Lander, Wyoming penned the article. She’s been managing editor of the Lander Journal, a correspondent for People magazine, an assistant editor for The Chronicle of Philanthropy, and a reporter for The News & Observer (N.C.). Her features for WyoFile are available here.

Thank you, Susan, for delicately capturing the essence of my writing and giving my readers a glimps into my life.

Chapter 1

The higher you fly, the harder you fall—and the harder reality smacks you in the butt when you land.

Lacey Bradford learned that lesson for the first time in high school, when the cheer team fumbled the catch after flinging her in the air. Hair flying, pom-poms a-flutter, she’d struck the grassy sidelines with a bone-rattling thump.

This time her fall was figurative, but it hurt just as much. Standing on the cracked macadam of a gas station in Nebraska, fishing in her purse for the last remnants of her gas money, it was hard to believe she’d gone from trophy wife to transient in one short month.

“Hey. That your dog?”

She turned to see a teenager lounging beside the mini-mart’s smudged glass door with a cigarette dangling from one hand. His hair was overlong and greasy, his jeans streaked with what appeared to be automotive grease and Cheez Doodle dust.

“Better take it if it is.” He flicked his butt into a puddle on the asphalt that was so glossy with oil Lacey half-expected it to burst into flames. “Boss said I should get rid of it.”

He nodded toward a dog standing next to the dumpster. It looked like a rat, or maybe a badger. Did they have those in Wyoming? They had all kinds of weird animals. Lacey had seen a pronghorn antelope a few miles back that looked like a cross between a deer and a prehistoric donkey.

“What do you mean, get rid of it?”

The boy shrugged and looked away as the dog collapsed and rested its whiskered chin in the dirt, sighing as if resigned to its fate. Its body was small, not much bigger than a cat’s, and its head was far too big for its body. A massively plumed tail flailed above its scrawny hind end.

Hell, if she looked like that, she’d crawl behind the dumpster and die.

Wait a minute. She did look kind of like that. Her formerly silky hair was frizzed by the heat and humidity, and her once-creamy complexion was spattered with freckles. But she was proud of the way she looked. She was a real person now—not somebody’s china doll. She’d earned her freckles and she’d wear them with pride.

“Can’t you just call the shelter?” she asked.

The kid looked at her blankly.

“You know. Animal Control?”

“Yeah, right.” He jutted his thumb toward the west. “Closest town’s Grady, and they ain’t even got people control.” He kicked the butt out of the puddle and ground it under his heel, eyeing the dog speculatively. “I’ll just, you know, get rid of it.”

He bent his knees and pointed at her. For a second she thought he was going to do some weird John Travolta disco move, but then he swiveled toward the dog, sighted down his finger, and twitched his thumb.

“Bang,” he said.

Dang. She was headed to Grady, but it was almost an hour away. If the animal rode in the car for that long it would probably infest the upholstery with mites or fleas or something.

The kid blew on the tip of his finger and shoved his hand in his pocket. She stared at him a moment, then patted her thigh and started toward her car.

“Come on, pup-dog. We’re going to Grady.”

***

A half hour later, she heard a disgruntled rumble from the backseat and checked the rearview mirror. The dog appeared to be sleeping. Or maybe he was dead—but judging from the sounds emanating from his belly, his innards were still very much alive. He sounded even worse than the car, which had frequent fits of automotive rheumatism that made it putt-putt along with all the speed and power of a Toro lawn mower. Taking the old Mustang she’d driven in high school on her road trip had seemed like a good idea—after all, it was her car, her own, not her ex-husband’s—but maybe doing a little maintenance on it over the years would have been a better one. A trip down Memory Lane should have been a smooth ride, but I-80 was an automotive ordeal pitted with potholes and scattered with stones.

The dog’s stomach rumbled again. Better pull over, she thought. Don’t want to take any chances.

Yeah, right. She steered the car to the shoulder and slid to a stop, kicking up gravel with a barely controlled skid. She was taking one heck of a chance with this whole trip. Her resolution to swear off the ill-gotten gains her husband had reaped from his real estate scams had seemed noble at first. She’d told herself she was turning over a new leaf, turning her back on the past.

But the past kept popping up like a persistent whack-a-mole she couldn’t hammer down. When she’d hit the job-hunting trail back in Conway, she discovered she’d become an overnight pariah. Nobody would hire the ex-wife of the man who’d cheated half the town. Then Wade Simpson had turned up, looking for her husband, making vague threats that made her uncomfortably aware that she was alone and unprotected.

Her gut had told her to leave, and for once in her life she’d listened.

As her hometown had fallen behind her, a spirit of adventure had taken over and she’d felt footloose—free, like a kid running away from home. Running felt as good as it did back when she was a little girl on the playground playing “kick the can” or “tag.”

Unfortunately, she was “it” this time. But she wasn’t the can, and she wasn’t going to let anyone kick her around.

She was just going to keep on running.

She watched the dog lift his leg on a tuft of grass that had somehow managed to push its way through the gravel by the side of the road. He angled his hind leg impossibly high, almost tipping over in his determination to mark his newfound territory.

“Don’t get too excited,” she said. “It’s not yours just because you peed on it.”

His brown eyes regarded her with an accusatory, bitter gaze, as if it was her fault someone had dumped him at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. His sparse, spiky hair and bushy eyebrows gave him the air of an angry and slightly mad senior citizen. She was glad she’d taken him with her. He made her laugh, and laughing made her feel like something inside her had given way and released the real Lacey from the stiff little Stepford wife she’d become.

“Come on, Sinclair.” Sinclair was the name of the gas station where she’d found him. The symbol for the place was a dinosaur—a friendly green brontosaurus. If it had been a Tyrannosaurus Rex, it would have been infinitely more attractive than the dog, and it would have exuded more warm fuzzies, too.

Naming the dog was a mistake. Naming him made him hers. But why shouldn’t she have a dog? She didn’t have anything else. She gripped the steering wheel and jutted her chin, glancing up in the rearview mirror to see if she’d nailed her I’ll-never-be-hungry-again Scarlett O’Hara impression. With her dark hair and pale skin, her green eyes and sharp, determined little chin, she’d always identified with the feisty heroine of Gone With the Wind, and she’d lived her life by the philosophy of WWSD: What Would Scarlett Do?

Scarlett wouldn’t worry. She wouldn’t torture herself thinking up worst-case scenarios. She’d say “fiddle-dee-dee`” and think about it tomorrow.

But the freckles weren’t helping the impersonation any. Neither was the trembling of her chin.

Scarlett had never been this scared.

to be continued…