Kaye Spencer a native Coloradoan, lives in a small, rural town located in the heart of the infamous Dust Bowl area of the 1930s. While drawn to cowboys and the Old West, all genres and time periods are within her story-creating realm.
Do you have any hidden or uncommon talents?
I'm not particularly talented, but I do play the harmonica.
Who is the most famous person you have ever met?
I have two instances of celebrity encounters.
The first was in 1987, when I was attending the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colorado for my teaching degree. The campus also hosted the spring training for the Denver Broncos. Michener Library, the university's huge library, has meeting rooms and classrooms on the basement level. I was hurrying along the hallway from one classroom to another, when I came around a blind corner and ran full-on into a wall of football players. The head coach, Dan Reeves, and quarterback, John Elway, grabbed me before I fell. Lots of polite apologizing.
The second encounter was in 1997 in a little town 12 miles from where I live (Pritchett, Colorado). Sam Elliot and Woody Harrelson were filming a scene for their movie 'The Hi-Lo Country'. [Yes, THAT Sam.] Nice fellas. Woody played basketball during gym class with the high school kids every day. Sam wandered around in his quiet way, stopping here and there to talk with people.
Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
I edit and revise as I write. I am unable to just write and write and write until I reach the end of the story and then go back and revise. This habit, probably more of an OCD issue, is maddening, because I spend so much time perfecting sentences and finding just the right words that it slows down my creative process. Even though I'm aware of it, I've not been able to squelch it completely.
What are your current projects?
I have three projects going on simultaneously. The first is the final revision of a 1929 Chicago mob story that begins with the St. Valentine's Day massacre. It's a romantic suspense that takes place over three days. The second is a western romance novella involving a woman who has come home after running from scandal 25 years before to be a mail-order bride to hide from her shame. Now that she's back home, she gets involved with rescuing two children from the stagecoach-robbing gang they're with. The third project is a moonshiner's daughter/FBI revenuer agent story set in the heyday of the Tennessee moonshining business in 1957.
Can you tell us a few things that readers might not know about you?
Collecting petrified wood is my only hobby. If I’m walking on gravel or rocks, then I’m scanning the ground for petrified wood.
From 1976 to 1983, my primary means of financial support was thoroughbred horseracing in Colorado, Nebraska, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. During the years when I lived in the eastern U.S., I often made trips back home to Colorado to visit my parents and to haul horses to and from the racetrack in Denver. On those Colorado trips, I'd take orders from fellow racetrackers who wanted Coors beer. I'd pack the beer on ice and store it in the gooseneck part of the horse trailer for the return trip. This is a mundane tidbit unless I add that, at the time, Coors beer was not sold east of the Mississippi River. I have to admit that that my pseudo-bootlegging excursions weren't nearly as entertaining as in 'Smokey and the Bandit'.
Sum up who you are in one sentence.
I am a lover of words, a crafter of stories, and a hopelessly hopeful romantic.
If you could give only one piece of advice, what would it be?
"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." Gandalf’s advice to Frodo
Could you tell us a bit about GAMBLING WITH LOVE and why it is a must-read?
Exceptional talent with cards, the sophistication of a southern lady, and concealed derringers are the weapons professional gambler Lainie Conrad takes with her to a high stakes poker tournament when she faces-off with the gambler who murdered her husband. But there is still the little problem of Deputy Marshal Nick Foster who's hot on her trail. He's as duty-bound to arrest her as he is determined to marry her. Lainie really does love him, but apparently shooting him—twice—to slow him down so she can take care of her revenge business hasn't been enough to change his mind. Well, there's always a third time...