Raised by Wood Smoke and Creek Water
Welcome to Women Honoring the West!
This month’s guest is a hoot! I’ve yet to meet her, but I’ll tell ya, her books make me laugh. She’s witty and filled with humor.
Let’s open the gate and meet Kit Morgan.
I didn’t grow up on a sprawling cattle ranch, but I did grow up in a log cabin tucked among tall trees in a canyon.
For years, my mother cooked on an old-fashioned wood stove before we ever had an electric one. I can still see her tending that fire, adding wood, adjusting drafts, coaxing steady heat from glowing embers. Nothing was instant.
Everything required attention.
I even have a photograph of myself as a little girl standing solemnly in front of that stove, already learning that warmth
comes from work. My dad bought us horses. Not for show, but so we could ride to our friends’ houses. If we wanted to visit someone, we saddled up.
We also had pigs and chickens. At one point we even had doves, though I can’t quite remember why. In the West, animals sometimes simply become part of the story, and you learn to care for them.
And, of course, there was the swimming hole. Clear water winding through trees, cool enough to steal your breath in the summer. It was our gathering place, our frontier, and escape. We had a ton of fun with that swimming hole, and folks still ask if they can come out to our place in the
summer months to swim.
With a log cabin, horses, a barn, and woods all around us, it didn’t take much imagination to pretend we lived in the old West. We were pioneers in our own minds, riding across invisible prairies and defending homesteads that existed only in story.
When I grew older and lived there again as an adult, one of my favorite places to write was at the entrance to the barn. It felt like coming full circle. I wrote quite a few stories in that barn and cabin. Quite a few entire series, in fact.
What draws me most to the Western lifestyle is its honesty.
If you don’t haul the water, it doesn’t appear. If you neglect the fence, the animals wander. If you fall, you get up.
Western women understand that.
They work when they’re tired. They shoulder responsibility. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit. Their strength isn’t loud; it’s steady and faith-rooted. The kind that believes God meets you in the dust as surely as He does in the pew.
That spirit shapes the Wild Rose Ridge books. Especially the historicals.
As I write mostly historicals under Kit Morgan, I’m drawn to Val O’Malley the most. The women in those stories
stumble, doubt, and sometimes fall flat. But they’re always facing forward.
Horses will always be my favorite ranch animal. In my stories, they aren’t background—they’re
companions in quiet moments and witnesses to courage.
I didn’t grow up with endless acreage. I grew up with wood smoke, creek water, saddle leather, and stories waiting to be told.
Turns out, that was all the West I needed.
About Kit Morgan
USA Today bestselling author Kit Morgan has written for fun all of her life. Whether she’s writing contemporary or historical romance, her whimsical stories are fun, inspirational, sweet and clean, and depict a strong sense of family and community. Raised by a homicide detective, one would think she’d write romantic suspense, (and yes, she plans to get around to those eventually, cozy mysteries too!) but Kit likes fun and romantic westerns! Kit resides in the beautiful Pacific Northwest in a little log cabin on Clear Creek, after which her fictional town that appears in many of her books is named.
Connect with Kit
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorKMorgan/
Kit’s Corner: https://www.facebook.com/groups/111645516175113
Kit’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorkit.morgan/
Kit’s TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@authorkitmorgan
Check Out Kit’s Books
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2MUqQHY
Kit loves to hear from readers. Drop your questions and thoughts in the comments.
