Okay, friends, it’s time to grab your marshmallows and gather around the virtual Yellowstone campfire! I’ve asked two of my author friends to join us today. Like me, they both have written novels set at Yellowstone National Park. So I thought it would be fun to “circle our camp chairs” and chat about what’s it like to write a novel set in this glorious place. I hope you enjoy this conversation with some favorite authors.
Introductions
In addition to writing, Janine Rosche enjoys watching movies, taking adorable pictures of her dogs sleeping, and embarrassing her four children with boy band serenades. Her debut novel This Wandering Heart is available for preorder now.
Kristen Joy Wilks lives in the beautiful Cascade Mountains with her camp director husband, three fierce sons, and a large and slobbery Newfoundland dog. She has blow-dried a chicken, fought epic Nerf battles instead of washing dishes, and discovered a stealthily smuggled gardener snake in her sons’ bubble bath. She writes romantic comedies for Pelican Book Group, including Copenhagen Cozenage, The Volk Advent, Athens Ambuscade, Spider Gap, and Yellowstone Yondering. Kristen writes about the humor and Grace that can be found amidst the detritus of life.
Me: Kristen and Janine, tell me a little about your writing background. What’s your preferred genre and how would you describe your writing style?
Janine: I write contemporary rustic romance set near mountains, rivers, and National Parks. They have a lot of heart and angst, along with a bit of humor to balance the hard stuff.
Kristen: Let’s see, I started writing stories in first grade. My debut was a book that was actually shaped like a giant guinea pig and told the chilling tale of how our Scottish terrier mix attempted to murder my brother’s guinea pig. Don’t worry, Fluffy used a trick to escape! But I have been writing with the goal of publication since 2001 and have taken various distance courses on writing to learn and grow. My favorite genres are Young Adult and Middle Grade but I do love to write a good romantic comedy. My writing style is chatty and snarky with lots of physical comedy and ridiculous situations. I also enjoy including dogs and occasionally a taxidermy cat. I promise three things in each book and my sons make sure that I do not forget. A kiss (which they do not care about) a concussion (which they very much care about) and a crazed animal. They definitely quiz me to make sure that I’ve included the crazed animal.
The Books
Me: Tell me a little about your upcoming book. I love reading novels with a Yellowstone connection!
Kristen: Yellowstone Yondering follows a freelance photographer as she madly searches Yellowstone National Park for her missing dog. Madly is the key word here as she ignores a plethora of sensible warning signs in her quest to find her pup, a bold Scottish terrier more likely to challenge a bull bison to a battle royale than to tuck tail and run. A rule-obsessed (and handsome) park ranger thwarts her efforts and earns her ire. Can she find her poor Ainsley before he is trampled or devoured?
Janine: In This Wandering Heart, Keira is an unassuming high school geography teacher who moonlights as a sensational travel blogger. The only one who knows her true identity is her first love, Robbie Matthews who is trying to retain custody of his four-year-old daughter. In order to land her dream job, Keira needs Robbie’s help during a summer road trip, but will her dream cost him his daughter?
Yellowstone Chatter
Me: In the book club questions for my novel, Ever Faithful, I have the readers describe themselves in Yellowstone terms (like my characters do in the story). I’d be curious to hear your answers, too. Are you…
a. Bubbly and feisty like a geyser
b. Calm and serene like Yellowstone Lake on a sunny day
c. Strong and stubborn like a bison
d. Playful and mischievous like a raccoon kit
e. Temperamental and explosive like a mud pot
f. Loving and fiercely protective like a mama grizzly
g. ______and ______ like a ________ (fill in your own).
Kristen: How about cute and opinionated like a whistling marmot! One without bubonic plague!!!
Janine: Since my story is based along the Madison River which runs through Yellowstone, I’ll say that I can either be coolly serene or white-water wild as the Madison River, depending on where you catch me. Pray for my husband, y’all.
Me: Haha! Great answers! What got you interested in writing stories set in Yellowstone? Was there a specific thing you experienced that inspired a scene in your book?
Janine: My parents and I used to visit Yellowstone and stay at the ramshackle fly-fishing resort where cell phones don’t work, and a bear might end up sleeping on your porch. It is such a fantastic blend of danger and serenity, adventure and wonder, so when you visit you are forever changed. I wrote my first book after my father passed away, and in it, I write him a new ending—a retirement where he owns this resort, and he and my mom get their happily ever after.
Kristen: Our family visited the park when the boys were 12, 10, and 8. Their amazement and delight over the terrifying warning signs was what first sparked this story. The same little boy was shown in peril on many of the signs. My husband named him Jimmy. There was Jimmy being tossed in the air by a bison. Jimmy feebly waving a bag of marshmallows as a grizzly charged straight toward him. Jimmy succumbing to the dangers of the thermal zone. These very clear warning signs got me thinking about how hard authors work to endanger their characters. Why, there was danger galore here! The setting is just waiting for a foolish heroine to poke her toe out of line and be devoured! Don’t worry, no dogs or bumbling photographers were hurt during the writing of this book. After reading, Death in Yellowstone, and coming across the story of the man who dove into a boiling pool after his dog, I knew that saving her furbaby would be sufficient motivation for me to get Kayla into all sorts of trouble and to sufficiently enrage my handsome ranger. And thus, a book was born.
Me: I love how you wrote a new ending, Janine! And Kristen, I listened to Death in Yellowstone on audiobook during my drive to Yellowstone. (13 1/2 hours of ALL the ways people have died in the park). By the time I arrived, I was completely freaked out.
Favorites
Tell me your favorite memory of Yellowstone.
Janine: My father took me fly-fishing in the Madison River. I looked ridiculous in my waders, and I was sure I’d be washed away, straight to a bear’s mouth, but it was a fantastic memory.
Kristen: Counting how many hats had fallen into The Grand Prismatic, seeing the rump of a fleeing grizzly, watching a mother moose and calf near our yurt, watching my 3 sons jump and frolic as they followed their dad and grandma down the boardwalks. Yes, I might have clutched at my heart as some of these frolics made me envision them crashing into a deadly pool, but between exclamations of caution, I loved seeing how excited they were.
Me: Most visitors stop at the well-known spots like Old Faithful and Grand Prismatic, but sometimes it’s fun to try something different. I really enjoyed riding the vintage tour bus, and I also geeked out over the historic tour of the Old Faithful Inn. What are some of your favorite things to see/do in Yellowstone?
Kristen: We loved running around on the rocks at the edge of Lake Yellowstone, driving straight through the park in one day to visit the Buffalo Bill Museum (right before our van broke down), and searching for and finding the most acidic pool in the park!
Janine: There’s a trail you can take that takes you behind Grand Prismatic Spring. If you climb this one hill, you can get an overlook view of the spring that is glorious.
Me: Kristen, I liked your description of the bison herds in Yellowstone Yondering. What’s your favorite Yellowstone animal?
Kristen: I love our black bears here at home (from a distance of course) but wanted a glimpse of one of the park’s fabled grizzly bears. We finally saw a huge rump disappearing into the woods. So that was fabulous. But I really do love the bison. They are probably my favorite as they are just so massive and amazing.
Me: Janine, you told me that you’ve still yet to see a bear or wolf at the park. What kind of critters have you seen and do you have a favorite?
Janine: Buffalo make me cry. They are the most amazing animals, and I become a blubbering baby EVERY TIME I SEE ONE!
Me: Bison/Buffalo for the win!
Favorite Parks
Me: Most of my readers are fans of the national parks. Other than Yellowstone, what is your favorite park(s) and why?
Janine: I have to say the Everglades. That was one of the first solo trips I ever took. I was a naïve twenty-year-old with a road atlas and a dream of adventure, but I first had to overcome my fears very much like my character, Keira.
Kristen: We went camping in the Redwood National Park when our boys were 2, 4, and 6. It was just so amazing! We also camped at Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument back when our youngest son still slept in a playpen. We had a huge tent and just set the playpen up in the middle of it.
Me: Ever since watching Northern Exposure as a kid, I’ve dreamed of Alaska and of visiting Denali National Park. If you were planning a trip to a park you haven’t seen yet, which one would it be?
Janine: Can I choose two? I have pivotal scenes in This Wandering Heart that take place in Denali and the Badlands, so I’m aching to see those in real life!
Kristen: I have only been to Mount Rainier National Park once and I would love to take the boys there. I would also love to go to Yosemite and Glacier Bay National Park!
Me: Outside of national parks, do you have a dream book setting?
Janine: I love the mountains of Colorado. I hope to write the next series in a small mountain town like Breckenridge or Estes Park.
Kristen: Oh, how I would love to go to Ireland … for research of course!
Me: I love both of those ideas!
What’s next?
Okay, friends—what’s ahead for you writing-wise?
Kristen: I am currently working on revising the six unpublished middle grade novels that are moldering on my computer as well as a romantic comedy wherein the heroine must drive a trailer full of beloved pet chickens over a mountain pass. Of course she crashes, and yes chickens go everywhere and she must comb the outer reaches of the wilderness to find a specific pet chicken whose little boy needs her back immediately!
Janine: While I’m imagining my next series, all three of my Madison River Romances are releasing in the next twelve months so I’ll be alternating between squealing, crying, and hiding from reviews! This Wandering Heart (May 5th), Wildflower Road (October 6th), and Glory Falls (January 5th, 2021).
Now that you’ve met Kristen and Janine, I’m sure you’ll want to connect with them online and learn more about Yellowstone Yondering and the Madison River Romances. Here’s where you can find them!
Let’s connect!
Kristen Joy Wilks
Website: www.kristenjoywilks.com/
Find Kristen on YouTube
Facebook
Amazon
Barnes&Noble.com
Janine Rosche
Website: www.janinerosche.com
Find Janine on Facebook
PreOrder Link on Amazon
Thanks for joining me, Janine and Kristen. I can’t wait to read more books by both of you. Keep writing!
