Katie Ganshert - Authursday!

Katie Ganshert
State: Iowa

Genre(s): Contemporary Romance/Women’s Fiction

Titles:
- Beneath a Velvet Sky from Waterbrook Multnomah (2012)

Beneath a Velvet Sky - Bethany Quinn grudgingly leaves the big city and returns to her small Iowa hometown to check on her sick grandfather and offer condolences to her estranged and newly widowed bestfriend. It shouldn’t take longer than a week to clear her conscience and find some closure. But she wasn’t counting on Evan Price, the ruggedly handsome, strong willed man living on her grandfather’s farm. He challenges everything she’s worked for, and brings her face-to-face with a dark secret that’s chased her for the past sixteen years. With Evan’s assistance, can Bethany find freedom in the very town that held her captive for so long?



- Wishing on Willows from Waterbrook Multnomah (2013)

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I've been getting to know Ms. Ganshert through her blog and her friendly emails.  This lady is fun and faith driven - two of my favorite traits.  Her answers below are so charming and witty - I can't wait to read her books - and yes, she did agree to come back when the release is closer! So excited. 
How did you become a writer?
I’ve always written. While most kids watched Saturday morning cartoons, I sprawled out on my bed, filling notebook after notebook with unfinished stories. My mom still has crates of them in her basement. But I don’t suppose I morphed from a person who writes to an actual writer until I finished that first novel, and had the guts (or insanity) to open another word document and do it all over again.

What is the weirdest place you’ve been or thing you were doing where you came up with a book idea?
Praying with a woman sick with AIDS inside a tin shack in the biggest slum in sub Sahara Africa. I went there five years ago for a mission trip. When I came home, words spilled out of me. Lots and lots of words. Two months later, I had my first novel.

How do you come up with ideas (don’t you hate this question?)?
Usually, for me, a random scene will pop into my head. Or not even a scene, but an image, or a one-liner. And from there, I’ll build an entire novel. Like when I prayed with that lady in Kibera. Or another time, I was stopped at a street light while a car passed in front of me and the driver’s lips moved to the same song playing on my radio. I felt a connection. Like, Hey, we’re both listening to K-Love! And all of a sudden, this scene popped into my head. Of a man, stopped at a red light, noticing this woman belting the words to a worship song playing from his speakers. That is now a scene in Wishing on Willows, a full-length novel, scheduled to hit shelves sometime in 2013. All because of that one silly moment in my car.

Is your “real life” comparable at all to the stories you write?
You mean do I find myself butting heads with hunky heroes on a regular basis? Hmmm…I don’t think my husband would like that very much. But I can tell you I’m pursued by someone who takes my breath away. Someone who puts the swoon-worthiest of heroes to shame. He chases after me. He’s jealous for me. He knows every hair on my head and He calls me beautiful and beloved. He’s my bridegroom. Our bridegroom. The inspiration behind every romance I write.

Do your characters have a “fate”? Or do they get to choose where their story goes?
Unfortunately for them, I am an OCD plotter, so their fate is pretty much sealed by the time I begin writing the rough draft. Brainstorming is their only opportunity to speak up or forever hold their peace.

Which character would you sit down and have a meal with? What would you have? What would they have?
As a married woman who writes awfully attractive heroes, I should probably stay away from the men. I guess, if I could only pick one, I’d have lunch with Ivy Clark—a fashion model who has, at the ripe age of 24, reached her prime. I’d eat beer-battered fried pickle spears dipped in honey mustard while the poor girl munched on a salad and vented about her cute new photographer and how his seeming indifference drives her up the wall.

List three things you want to do or accomplish in the next three years.
Write more novels. Connect with readers. Get another contract.

What has been the toughest part of your writing journey?
The waiting. Oh goodness, give me a rejection any day. The waiting drives me up a wall. It’s enough to make a normal person insane, so what hope do writers have?

Is there anything off-the-wall you think no one should know?
I might be prophetic. HA! Just kidding. Sort of. My husband thinks I have prophetic dreams. The morning we found out I was pregnant with Brogan, I’d just woken from a dream where I took a preggo test and it came back positive. I remember waking up and being SO bummed that it was only a dream, but then I took a real test and lo and behold! Two lines. Then there was the time I dreamt Rachelle called to offer me representation and two days later….she did. The other day I dreamt I had twins….

Game of Would You Rather…
… be rich and famous and sell mediocre books or be average paid and a respected name that reviews acclaim?
I’m pleading the fifth. I know. Lame.
… shake up a can of pop and open it in a group of people or go for a Polar Bear plunge?
Am I selfish for choosing the first option? Sorry to the group I’m standing in, but there’s no way I’m participating in anything that’s cold enough to earn the phrase Polar Bear plunge.
… eat 10 pounds of raw carrots or half a pound of raw fish?
Bring on the sushi!
… hug a stranger or slap a friend?
Hug a stranger.
… pray in public or not at all?
Pray in public.
… choose your own ideas for books or have someone assign them to you?
The thought of having somebody assign them to me is sort of nice. I freak myself out sometimes that I’ll run out of ideas.

Katie and I share awesome agent, Rachelle Gardner.

If you want to read more about Katie and her writing experience, hop on over to her blog (above) and follow her.

Thanks again, Katie!  You are so fun!