Guest Alison Henderson author of Small Town Christmas Tales – #Holidayrelease

Welcome Alison Henderson to my blog. I love Christmas stories and this collection is great.

Barb, thanks so much for inviting me to share a little about the inception of my new book Small Town Christmas Tales: Ten Short Holiday Romances. This is my fifth published book but my first collection of short stories. It was inspired by the December short stories our group blog, The Roses of Prose, have been writing for the past three years. I had never written a short story before we began this annual holiday tradition, and I was surprised how much I enjoyed it!

Writing ten individual stories turned out to be quite a challenge. When I write a full length novel, I start with a general premise and some ideas about the two main characters. Setting is also important, but it’s usually part of the premise. I used a somewhat different approach with the stories in Small Town Christmas Tales. Because each story in this collection is set in a fictional small town in a different state, I the setting influenced the story in several cases.

For example: A couple of years ago, my husband and I stopped in the town of Lusk, Wyoming for lunch when we were in the process of moving cross country from Minnesota to California. Because it was Easter Sunday, everything was closed. We ended up eating prepared sandwiches from the hotel in the car because I could barely stand against the gale winds blowing giant tumbleweeds across the barren landscape. I’ll never forget the look and feel of eastern Wyoming that morning. When I sat down to plan my stories, I asked myself, why might a young woman be driving through a town like that, and what might make her stop? The answers became the basis of “A Hard Luck Christmas.”

Each story in the collection has a colorful and distinctive setting. I hope you’ll check them out!

Buy Link: http://amzn.to/1M5m2J9

Author Bio:
I haven’t always been a writer, but I have always embraced creativity and relished new experiences. Seeking to expand my horizons beyond Kansas City, I chose a college in upstate New York. By the time I was twenty-one I had traveled the world from Tunisia to Japan. Little did I suspect I was collecting material for future characters and stories along the way.

I began writing when my daughter entered preschool (she’s now a full-fledged adult) and became addicted to the challenge of translating the living, breathing images in my mind into words. I write romance because that’s what I like to read. The world provides more than enough drama and tragedy. I want to give my readers the happily-ever-after we all crave.