Friday, December 23, 2011

About Our Authors. First: Janet Muirhead Hill

Here is the first in a series of posts introducing the authors of Raven Publishing, Inc. of Montana. Janet Muirhead Hill, founder of Raven was also its first author. After publishing her Miranda and Starlight series of six books, she expanded her company to publish other authors of important novels and memoir.

We'll start with her.

Janet Muirhead Hill’s three favorite things in life were nurtured on the cattle ranches where she grew up in the Yampa River Valley in the Colorado Rockies. She incorporates them in the books she writes. 1) Kids. More than anything else, Janet, the middle child in a family of six kids, loves children and cares about their welfare. 2) Writing. Her older sister who read to her and taught her to make up stories on the long winter evenings they shared fostered her love for books and writing. 3) Horses. Her father, a horse lover and cowboy, taught his children to ride and to care horses. At a very young age, Janet developed great admiration and a connection with these noble animals.

In 2002, Hill published Miranda and Starlight, the first of a six-book series of horse stories that involve a young girl, Miranda, with problems involving Starlight, the horse of her dreams. Miranda is a lonely girl, sent to her grandparents’ dairy farm in Montana while her mother stays in Los Angeles, seeking stardom. Miranda doesn’t fit in with the kids in the small country school, and she believes that if she only had a horse, nothing else would matter. When she meets Starlight, a black two-year-old colt on a neighboring thoroughbred horse ranch, and the adventures begin.

Hill has published three other novels, one stand-alone about a Montana ranch boy whose father is killed in the war. Danny goes through the stages of grief with the help of his horse, Dragon, until his mother takes them to Denver to live with grandparents he hardly knows. Like all of Hill’s books, Danny’s Dragon was created to help kids through difficult times, showing them that they are not alone and offering support and help wrapped in a gripping adventure story.

Her latest books, the first two novels of a trilogy, gives the reader an intimate look at the devastation that parents can cause when they divorce without understanding the effect it can have on the children. Kendall (Kendall’s Storm) and Kyleah (Kyleah’s Tree) are twins who have not been allowed contact since their parents divorced when they were four. Hill has written Kendall and Kyleah, the third book of this trilogy, which will be released in 2012.

Hill continues to write from her rural Montana home where she keeps three horses and remains very connected to her grandchildren.


The next post will tell the story of another Raven author.