Florence is a writer and has been one ever since driving through near-blizzard conditions to the school where she taught while thinking how she'd always intended to become a writer and how, if she'd followed that dream, she wouldn't be sliding sidewise and possibly be stranded in the depth of the forest in a blizzard. Being a sensible person, when the school year ended, she said goodbye to teaching, became a full-time, professional writer and has never looked back.
She now writes about the lake she lived by in that forest, and the forest itself, and the wild things that live there. Bears. Wolves. Eagles. Otters. Other animals and birds. And people. The wilderness is lightly populated, but a few people live here and there beneath the trees.
She designs her stories around those forest dwellers. Sometimes her stories take them out of their leafy comfort zone and into other dimensions and the depths of space. Sometimes she writes of life and love in the north woods.
Since that fateful day when she changed professions, she's been a ghost writer, written confession stories, done editing, written advertising copy, written some non-fiction articles, written literary and science-fiction short stories, written both novellas and novels, and won the only literary contest she ever entered, becoming Minnesota's Region 2 Literary Person of the Year.
When the bricks and mortar publishing industry went bankrupt and her pay-checks went up in smoke, like many other writers she made the transition to electronic media, eventually ending up in the absolute best place of all, Winged Publications, where she writes for both Forget Me Not Romances and Take Me Away Books.
She believes that a reader should feel better after reading a romance instead of worse so she's become something of an outlier as an author by eschewing today's all-too-common dysfunctional, angst-ridden heroes and heroines. Like Alfred Hitchcock, whose characters were intentionally normal, well-adjusted people thrown into interesting situations, Florence's characters lead happy, fulfilling lives and aren't looking for adventure. But somehow adventure finds them.
And, yes, her stories always have a romantic element and they always end well.
Author Florence Witkop
You can find her stories on his website, on Amazon, or through Winged Publications. These are some examples.
A Very Black Cat: A rescue cat decides to change his owner's life and does so with verve and dedication.
Spirit Legend: A spirit lives in a wilderness lake and is helped by a couple isolated by a storm.
The Christmas House: A woman moves to the forest and lives a back-to-nature life to make her grandmother happy.
Shh — Don't Tell: A woman dedicates a summer to protecting a family of Mallard ducks.
Wolf Legend: A couple bring a dire-wolf pup from another dimension into their lives.
Wanted Sharpshooter: A woman is forced to depend on a sharpshooter to keep both her and her beloved horses safe.
Earth Legend: A botanist is so good with plants that it's beyond uncanny—it's impossible and crucially important.
When Dreams Come True: A woman can speak to people through her dreams. And does.
The Man From Tomorrow: A woman goes for a walk among the wildflowers and finds a young, good-looking, unconscious man who was born 100 years earlier.