Talking the talk about writing about riding

I'm excited and looking forward to speaking at the DFWWW conference in February. Starting with Candy Havens as their keynote speaker, they have an amazing line-up of talent and I'm honored and humbled to be included. Forget all those other people, come see me!

I'll be talking about _Horses in Fiction: Writing about Riding_ But rather than go over all the usual stuff that's so easy to Google, I'm going to focus on some common errors and mistakes and try to offer some answers to those questions you didn't know you needed to ask.

This won't so much be geared to the author who's writing a character that is a horse trainer or breeder, or who has a horse as a main character, but more toward the author who has horses in their backdrop. Lots of authors have characters that ride, but have never given the poor beasts much personality. Real working horses and true companion horses have an amazing way of reflecting the thoughts and moods of their people, even more than many pets who spend a lifetime at the sides of their people, because a horse can truly be a partner and a helpmate through hardships in ways that other animals and pets sometimes can't and I hope to be able to help people bring some of that through in their stories.