Welcome to the Saturday Spotlight, a weekly feature that shines the light on Indie and Debut authors. This week I have the pleasure introducing readers to:

JEN GREYSON

by Jen Greyson-2013

Being a writer is a blast. I can take any situation and re-write it to my liking.

Line take too long at Burger King? Re-write it with a fantastical reason (which probably includes a glitchy superpower) while I’m waiting for my Whopper Jr.

Mean person at the DMV? Re-write their childhood (and depending on my mood, send them to Antarctica or Switzerland). 

Any chance encounter with me increases the likelihood that something about a person is going to end up in one of my books. Maybe something simple like the color of a sweater, but maybe something deeper like the way a woman looks at a man while they’re riding on the bus. Or a chance encounter of two men who clearly hate each other in the stairwell.

Whatever the situation, I’m always looking for tidbits of real life.

I shouldn't have been surprised when the first real person (long-since-dead) showed up in my book. Now it’s become old habit to discover interesting people and entwine their lives with my characters’.

Sometimes I even let them live.

In Lightning Rider, my novel due out May 31, I discovered Viriato, a Spanish legend with a very fishy death. The further I delved into his life, the easier it became to insert a time traveler. Viriato kept the Roman Army from conquering northern Spain for decades. He was a simple goat herder who rallied farmers and soldiers to protect their home. The tales of his victories are legend. So what kills a man like that? Crazy battle? Horrible infection from a knife wound?

No.

His three trusted advisors murdered him while he slept. Or so the story goes.

With each book, I’ve come to learn that every conspiracy theory and oddly placed event can be explained by time travelers. Luckily, I happen to have a few on hand.

From the moment she decided on a degree in Equestrian Studies, Jen Greyson’s life has been one unscripted adventure after another. Leaving the cowboy state of Wyoming to train show horses in France, Switzerland, and Germany, she’s lived life without much of a plan, but always a book in her suitcase. Now a wife and mom to two young boys, she relies on her adventurous, passionate characters to be the risk- takers.

Jen also writes university courses and corporate training material when she’s not enjoying the wilds of the west via wakeboard or snowmobile.