How Wolfie got his name

One of my early readers for Shiftless
complained about the love interest being named Wolfie, and her point
had merit.  For those of you who don't live in the South, romantic
leads with names ending in "ie" or "y" probably seem a little odd. 
If you've read Bloodling Wolf,
you'll understand why Wolfie has this name, but the honest truth is
that I decided to let the diminutive fly for more sentimental reasons.



When I was in junior high
school, my across-the-street neighbor was a middle-aged black mortician
whose nickname was Duke (short for Dude, I kid you not).  Despite
the fact that I was a white girl obsessed with plants and other living
things (meaning we had pretty much nothing in common), Duke and I got
along admirably.  As another strange side note, my neighbor had a
girlfriend with my exact same name, first and last, but that's neither
here nor there.



Anyway, to get back to
Wolfie, I was just starting to stretch my artistic wings at that time,
and one day I came home from school with a pastel drawing of a wolf's
face.  In retrospect, the drawing wasn't particularly good, but it
did look a lot like the cover of Bloodling Wolf,
but with blues instead of reds.  Duke happened to drop by while
the picture was sitting on the table, and he immediately said he had to
have it.  "That's Wolfie!" he exclaimed, and offered to buy the
drawing from me.  I couldn't bear to part with my new work of art,
though, so...my neighbor stole it.  Yep, you read that right ---
when I came home from school the next day, the picture of Wolfie was
gone, and I soon found it framed and hanging in Duke's hallway. 
Being a vindictive middle schooler, I immediately stole Wolfie back, but
Duke did the same, and soon I gave up and let Duke have custody of my
pastel wolf.



While I was off at
college, studying art among other things, Duke died, and I'm not sure
what happened to Wolfie.  But my neighbor's honest appreciation for
my pastel wolf was one of the things that spurred me to stick to my
childhood loves of art and writing, so I thought it was only fair to
name my hero after Duke's Wolfie.



This story is all a long way of saying --- thank you to everyone who has recently encouraged me with Shiftless,
especially those of you who took time to leave a review, tell your
friends, or join my email list.  I've already written the beginning
of book two (tentatively titled Pack Princess),
and whenever I need a boost, I go and browse your kind words on Amazon
and Goodreads.  Like Duke (and the original Wolfie), your
appreciation makes writing worthwhile.  Thank you!