I’m so pleased to introduce you to Kristen Joy Wilks on this Writer Wednesday! I hope you enjoy meeting her!
When did you decide you would be an author? Was it something you fell into, felt called to…?
In 2001 I was in Canada with my husband while he went to seminary. I took some Bible College classes but he knew that I loved to write and dreamed of doing so professionally. Every time we walked into Safeway, I would see a flyer for an online writer’s course …and ignore it. I didn’t want to take the risk. One day, he saw the flyer. He grabbed it, handed it to me, and said, “You should do this!” I took one less Bible class and enrolled in the writing class that quarter. I have been working on my craft and writing almost every day since then!
What’s your pet peeve?
When someone says or writes that they “felt nauseous” instead of “felt nauseated.” Because if they are feeling nauseous, it means that they are making others ill rather than feeling ill themselves!
What was your most embarrassing moment as a writer?
At a writer’s conference, I was sharing a room with three other ladies. I sleepwalk and I did warn them ahead of time. But I was quite embarrassed to find out that in the middle of the night I sat up in bed. I then said, “You promised!” in an outraged voice and punched one of the other ladies in the arm! Thankfully she was not hurt and I would never have found out about it (I was asleep) if she hadn’t been laughing about it with her husband who immediately told my husband who then proceeded to tease me about it.
What has been your most difficult challenge as an author?
It is really hard to find a way to help readers discover my stories.
How do you process rejections and/or negative reviews?
Some wild weeping, a bit of chocolate, and a sweet kiss from my handsome man! Yeah, they are not fun. But when I think about quitting, I’ll pause a moment and try to think of something else that I would rather spend my creative energy on. I never come up with anything as challenging and fulfilling as writing and so I keep plugging away.
What do you feel is the best success so far in your writing career?
In 2018 my romantic comedy, Athens Ambuscade, won first in its category in the International Digital Awards and also won best contemporary fiction in the Oregon Christian Writer’s Cascade Contest. One of the OCW judges not only gave me a fabulous score, but pulled me aside and told me personally how my crazy story encouraged her and gave her a moment of laughter on a really hard day. That was a high point for sure!
What is your current work in process?
I am writing a RomCom about a young woman who gets talked into moving a trailer full of chickens over the mountains when a little boy’s uncle leaves them behind. Of course, just as she tops the mountain pass, she swerves to miss a bear and crashes, sending chickens everywhere. She must team up with the boy’s annoying uncle to search every forest trail and chicken coop in the remote mountain area until every beloved chicken is found. The problem, chickens of the same kind tend to look alike. It is easy to mistake one for the other and she comes upon a chicken coop with 20 hens that all look like the little boy’s very favorite pet chicken. What’s a girl to do?
Bio:
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, transported a gallon bag of cooked bacon inside her purse, and discovered a smuggled gardener snake in her sons’ bubble bath. Her stories, devotionals, and articles have appeared in Nature Friend, Clubhouse, Thriving Family, Keys for Kids, The Christian Journal, Splickety, Spark, and Havok. She writes romantic comedies for Pelican Book Group, including Copenhagen Cozenage, The Volk Advent, Athens Ambuscade, Spider Gap, and Yellowstone Yondering. Kristen loves to write about the humor and Grace that can be found amidst the detritus of life. Much like the shiny quarter one member of their household swallowed and then found in the pot four days later. If God is good enough to grant us these gems, she figures that someone should be putting them to the page. Kristen can be found tucked under a tattered quilt in an overstuffed chair at 4:00am writing a wide variety of implausible tales, or at http://www.kristenjoywilks.com . If you would rather enjoy photos of charging bison, Newfoundland dogs, and attacking squid then, by all means, visit her “What I’m Writing About” board on Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/kristenjwilks7/what-im-writing-about/
Website: http://www.kristenjoywilks.com/
Newsletter: http://www.kristenjoywilks.com/quarterly-newsletter/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/booksdogskissesandfrogs/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/kristenjwilks7
Amazon Page: https://www.amazon.com/Kristen-Joy-Wilks/e/B016FREUPM?ref
Latest book release:
Yellowstone Yondering
When a free-spirited wildlife photographer loses her Scottish terrier in a herd of bison, she sets out to rescue her furbaby before he is devoured. But will she succeed when Yellowstone National Park is chock full of boiling, bubbling, and rampaging hazards (both mammalian and geographical) — not to mention a rule-obsessed park ranger whose many rescues thwart her efforts to find her poor pup?