Gayle M Irwin

I enjoy traveling. Seeing new places and visiting ones I’ve been to before and dearly love, like Yellowstone National Park, the national parks in Utah, and the Oregon Coast. I love to walk in the woods and along the beach. Clean mountain air, mist from sea waves, birds trilling from branches and posts – all touch my heart as well as feed my senses.

New paths in life, like travel to new places, are exciting as well as intimidating. This year I’m embarking upon a few new ventures in my writing life, including submitting a manuscript to a traditional publisher and writing in a new genre.

My pathway to authorship began in 2007 with the publication of my first book, a children’s chapter book titled Sage’s Big Adventure: Living With Blindness. The story was patterned after a blind springer spaniel named Sage that my husband and I adopted in 2001 and her journey of losing her eyesight. I continued walking the trail of children’s book author for several years. During this time I also wrote and published Christian devotion books with dogs as the focus, including Walking in Trust: Lessons Learned With My Blind Dog, which also involved Sage.

I began the journey of sweet romance author in 2019, with a focus on pet rescue and adoption, and have since written and published more than 10 books in that genre, including the Yellowstone Country series. I’ve written some stand-alones, including holiday romance stories, and my newest book, Highwood Holiday: Falling for the Single Cowboy Dad, releases in e-book format this weekend. I plan to continue writing sweet, clean and wholesome romance stories even as I step onto a new writing path in 2025.

I’m excited to begin a new venture in fiction writing this year, that of the cozy mystery genre. Two books are planned for this year, one about retired persons in an Arizona community, and the second taking place in Yellowstone National Park at one of the historic hotels. I’m looking forward to crafting and releasing these stories, one this spring and the other in late summer.

I also plan to submit an inspirational pet rescue romance to a traditional publisher that is looking for “new voices” for their line of clean, heartwarming love stories. I’ve been working on this particular manuscript for several years and had planned to indie publish, as I’ve done with all my romance books. However, the timing is right, with a deadline of mid-March, to submit to this publisher, and I’ve decided to give it a go. Stay tuned for more information as I learn the status of my submission.

A new year rolled in a few weeks ago, and a new month is already on the horizon. What a great time for traveling new paths in life as an author!

Are you planning any new adventures this year? What has you excited and intimidated at the same time about such travels?