Stories & Reflection

UPDATE: The Spring Scavenger Hunt has ended, but feel free to follow the links (some will disappear after a while, but you can go to the Resources page to find the next one) and read about your favorite authors and their work! The winner on my blog for the drawing of Escape the Lie and a bonus book is PAM D., and she has been notified. CONGRATULATIONS! 

WELCOME to the CATCH US IF YOU CAN: SPRING SCAVENGER HUNT sponsored by the Christian Authors Network. I'm delighted to welcome you to Stop #14, Marti Pieper's blog.     

Here are the CAN Hunt’s official guidelines:

We hope you enjoy meeting Christian Author Network members as you chase down clues for the chance to win our grand prize: $200 in gift cards from CBD, Barnes & Noble, or Amazon, plus 30 free books, one from each participating CAN author!

•   2^nd & 3^rd Prizes: $50 Amazon, B&N, or CBD gift certificate!

• Catch us on this hunt beginning at Noon on Friday, 03/21/14 and ending at Midnight on Thursday, 03/27/14. No need to hurry as you search for clues—you have almost an entire week! If you need help at any time during the hunt, check in at our SCAVENGER HUNT RESOURCE PAGE.

• Enjoy 30 stops, each featuring a different CAN author!

• Gather the clues from each post, beginning at STOP # 1 and ending at Stop #30. Follow the directions and fill out the Rafflecopter form. Be ready to provide the complete clue in sentence form, gathered from all 30 stops, within 2 days of email notification or another winner will be randomly drawn. There is no need to email/submit the clue, unless you are notified by 03/29/14.

Sorry, due to international regulations and postage costs, prizes will be awarded to US Residents only. Individual contests within the hunt may vary, so please read rules presented with each giveaway. (Note: I have an individual contest at the end of this post, so be sure to check it out!)

MEET AUTHOR WINNIE GRIGGS

Welcome, hunters! I'm pleased to introduce my new friend, author Winnie Griggs, at this stop. Winnie is not only an award-winning author, but she's also a sought-after teacher at writers conferences. Her 2012 release, The Handpicked Husband, won a Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award. Here's a bit more about Winnie:

Winnie grew up in south Louisiana in an undeveloped area her friends thought of as the back of beyond.  She and her two younger siblings spent many an hour exploring the overgrown land around her home, cutting jungle trails, building forts and frontier camps, and looking for pirate ships on the nearby bayou.   She filled notebooks with scribblings about the imaginary friends she met there, and somewhere along the way, those scribblings gave way to full-length stories.

Now a wife, mother of four grown children (including a set of twins), and a multi-published, award-winning author, Winnie feels blessed to be able to share her stories with readers through her writings for Love Inspired Historical books.  You can learn more about Winnie at her website and connect with her on Facebook, too. 

An extra tidbit about Winnie is that she designed the beautiful spring logo at the top of this page. Great job, my friend! Since I provided our Catch Us If You CAN designation, I've decided we're sisters of the creative kind.

Now, let's hear from Winnie herself: 

From time to time folks have asked me where the tagline on my website, Small Towns, Big Hearts, Amazing Grace, came from.    The short answer is that it’s a concise picture of what my stories and I are all about.

The Small Towns part speaks not only to the settings for my stories, but also to who I am.  I’ve never been a country girl but neither am I a big city girl.  I grew up in a community that perched on the very edge of my hometown in the bayou country of southeast Louisiana.  We were the last house on the school bus route and there were plenty of overgrown lots in the area for us kids to play in and feed our imaginations.  I attended a college located in a picturesque small town steeped in history located near the center of the state.  When I married and moved with my husband to the northeast corner of the state, we again settled in a small town, population 1100.  There’s just something about the closeness of a town where most everyone knows each other and the majority of the businesses are family owned that can’t be found in big cities.

The Big Hearts part, of course, is a nod to the fact that I write Romances.  But more than that, it is a promise I make to my readers and to myself that I will always do my best to provide a deep emotional experience that will resonate with whoever reads it.  If the book doesn’t touch me at a very deep level, then I go back through it, sometimes rewriting whole sections, until I’m satisfied that I’ve dug deep enough to wring out the emotions the story deserves.

The Amazing Grace part is, of course, a nod to the fact that I write for a line whose focus is wholesome stories told from a Christian worldview.  But more than that, I try to weave into my stories my own overwhelming awe at the continual discovery of God’s grace, that when we are at our lowest point, that is when God can most clearly show us His power and love for us.

The fellowship of small towns, the emotion of Big Hearts, and the Amazing Grace of God: that's the picture I strive to paint in all my books.

Thank you so much, Winnie. I know our readers are glad to learn more of the story behind your stories! And thank you, Readers/Hunters. Ready to continue? 

THE SCAVENGER HUNT CAN-DOs:

Before you go, write down this STOP #14 CLUE: BOOKS

But wait, there's more! Check out the following extra Catch Us if you CAN Giveaway:  Please leave a comment below for the opportunity to win a copy of my May 20 release, Escape the Lie, featured at the previous stop.  Once the Scavenger Hunt concludes, I'll use random.org to draw a winner. You'll have to wait until late May to receive your book, but I'll make sure to send it along with a bonus surprise book (US mailing addresses only, please).  And if you subscribe to my blog here, I'll give you a bonus entry!

Comment Starters: What interests you about Winnie's post? Have you read any of her books? If so, which one(s)? If not, what kind of books do you enjoy? Winnie and I are readers as well as writers, so we'd love to hear your thoughts. 

Now, proceed to stop #15 at Winnie Griggs' website!