The Tawny Tracks of Storytelling: Guest Post for Women Writing the West

“Why,” my editor asked me, calling from New York after she'd read the first complete draft of my first novel several years ago, “do we need the mountain lion?  It’s not like she’s supernatural or mystical or anything.”

True, the lion in Shifting Stars was only being a lion.  But she was linked by the land to a destiny greater than any of us could understand, and it was her destiny that was linked to Turtle Woman’s, and to mine.  No, not supernatural, not greater than nature, yet every bit as mysterious as nature.

How, I wondered, does a writer find her way into the heart of a story without following the tracks of the animals?  How does a woman find her way through life without these animals to guide her?

This month, my story is posted in full on the Women Writing the West website.  Please continue reading by clicking Follow the Tawny Tracks.   Thank you. 

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