Rose McCauley, Christian Author

Second Guest blog and book giveaway contest by Shannon Taylor Vannatter

Shannon has come back to post another guest blog today and has graciously offered to give away another copy of Rodeo Dust. Salena Stormo won a copy for her comment on last week's blog. Now here's Shannon.

Guest Blog by Shannon Taylor Vannatter
My Inkslinger Blog features inspirational authors' real life and fictional romances. It's geared to celebrate marriage and help readers discover new authors. I post one, two, or three day features with weekly book giveaways. If an author chooses to do more than one post, the first usually focuses on their real life romance. This lets the reader get to know the author. Some authors choose to write three posts about their real life romance and those are really popular with readers.

I also feature single authors. They either blog about a real life romance in their family tree or their characters' romance. Only two single authors have been brave enough to tackle my interview for singles with questions like--Are you open to romance? Many single authors choose to interview their heroes and heroines about their romances.
Writers don't have to be published on my blog. They can share their real life romance and I provide a book giveaway for them. I feature all genres of books as long as there is a romantic thread, the books are inspirational and follow the guidelines posted on my blog.
When my books release, I share something about my real life romance, then usually a romantic destination post, or interview my characters, with an excerpt from the book to wrap up the feature.
Here's the 1st post from the week that Rodeo Dust released:
I've talked about my supportive husband before. When I first started writing, we thought it was easy to get published. Once we realized it wasn’t, he never threw in the towel–even when it hit his wallet and it didn’t seem like we’d get any of the investment back.
Over the years, my writing has taken me to many locations. But I’m one of those people who doesn’t like to drive unless I know the area well and lots of traffic freaks me out. Luckily, I have a great chauffer. I was thinking of the many places he’s taken me in my pursuit of writing and research. Here’s the list I came up with:
* Little Rock, Arkansas – attended 2 conferences and 4 writers group meetings. (2 1/2 hour round trip)
* Nashville, Tennessee – attended ACFW Conference (12 hour round trip)
* Dallas, Texas – attended 2 ACFW Conferences (12 hour round trip)
* Council Bluffs, Iowa – so I could ride with my critique partner to attend the ACFW Conference in Denver. (19 1/2 hours round trip)
* Springfield, Missouri – spoke at a conference. (8 hour round trip)
* Eureka Springs, Arkansas – attended a conference once and spoke there once. (8 hour round trip)
* Scott, Arkansas – book signing at an outdoor festival. (3 hour round trip)
* Blytheville, Arkansas – book signing. (7 hour round trip)
* Cordova, Tennessee – spoke at a conference. (6 hour round trip)
* Siloam Springs, Arkansas – spoke at a writers workshop. (8 hour round trip)
* Fort Worth, Texas – researched the Fort Worth Stockyards for my Texas rodeo series. (14 hour round trip)

* Jonesboro, Arkansas – attended Book Fair (5 hour round trip)
Besides all that, he’s met my writer friends at numerous drop off points, so I could ride with them to conferences and workshops. I truly couldn’t have honed my skills, gotten published, helped other writers in their pursuit of publication, or written the Texas books without him.
We often make our trips into mini family vacations and we often have a lot of fun. But we’re both directionally challenged and are hard-pressed to read a map. We travel strictly by Mapquest and GPS–it takes both for us. Since technology isn’t perfect, we sometimes get almost to our destination, but not quite. We often end up lost. On top of that, he’s currently a bi-vocational pastor, so he basically has two jobs and is often running on empty. Usually his only reward is exhaustion and a nice steak dinner. But he carts me around anyway.
Because he loves me.
Bio:
Central Arkansas author, Shannon Taylor Vannatter is a stay-at-home mom/pastor’s wife. Her debut novel, White Roses won the 2011 Inspirational Readers Choice Award in the short contemporary category. The 18th Annual Heartsong Awards named Vannatter 3rd Favorite New Author, and White Roses #1 and White Doves #8 in the contemporary category. The Arkansas Democrat Three Rivers Edition voted Vannatter one of 20 to Watch in 2011.
She has taught fiction workshops at The White County Creative Writers Conference in Searcy, AR, Life Press Christian Writers Conference in Memphis, TN, Ozark Creative Writers Conference in Eureka Springs, AR, and Ozark Romance Authors Conference in Springfiled, MO. She also taught a writing class as a continuing adult education course at the Arkansas State University.
The first book in her Texas rodeo series, Rodeo Dust will be available through Heartsong Presents in October. Rodeo Hero and Rodeo Ashes release in 2012. Learn more about Shannon and her books at http://shannonvannatter.com.