Who is Morgan J Blake, Anyway?

Morgan J. Blake has always loved books. And the love of writing began early as well. Morgan tells stories of sneaking out of bed at age five to write books by flashlight. But it was not until high school that the serious writing began.

An avid reader since childhood, Morgan borrowed a Louis L'Amour book from a sibling, and there the love of the American west began. For the next several years, westerns were all Morgan read. And as a high school sophomore, she began writing one of her own. By college, Morgan progressed on to a new and different story.

"Redemption started as a project for a college writing course. I had tried all semester to write the literary fiction my classmates were so good at. But literary fiction just isn't my style. So I wrote a scene of a western, and things grew from there."

Redemption's action revolves around Wylie Kinson, an Army scout whose family is kidnapped. How did Morgan first meet Wylie?

"He was jumping off a moving train. I kept envisioning a tall, well-built man with longish hair throwing his belongings from an open boxcar door, and then jumping after them. That was the original opening to Redemption when I started it in 1991. What I didn't know at the time was that there were no trains in Texas during the year Redemption was set. I had to axe the whole opening."

But over the course of the next nine years, Redemption evolved into a much different story than it started out to be. It also grew from a single story to the first book of a series. The sequel to Redemption is half-written and Morgan has plans for at least two other books in the series.

A collector of western antiques and Louis L'Amour books, Morgan resides in Florida with her young son and purebred border collie. She makes one annual trip to the west, combining the yearly Women Writing the West conference and a bit of research for upcoming novels. In 1999, Morgan spent several days exploring southeastern Colorado in order to get a feel for the plains and canyons that would be the setting for Vengeance. So taken with the area, especially the Comanche National Grasslands, Morgan decided to set a second novel, The Canyon Lands, in the same locale.