Marlena Frank: “Impactful Educator” + The She-Wolf of Kanta Blog Tour Contest

The blog tour for The She-Wolf of Kanta by Marlena Frank stops by today, with a guest post from Marlena AND your chance to win an Amazon gift card – so be sure to keep reading for all the details!

Education in general has had an enormous impact on my life. My parents had to put themselves through college, and would often bring their three girls with them since it was such a long drive. We would busy ourselves with homework, reading, writing, drawing, or just exploring the library. I’m pretty sure we visited at least four different colleges when I was a kid.

As far as an impactful educator though, that would have to be my Mom. I spent many weekday afternoons in her empty classroom, helping her organize paperwork or setting up her bulletin board. Sometimes I wrote up riddles from The Hobbit for her fourth graders to try to puzzle out. They absolutely loved it. I witnessed first-hand the effort and dedication it took to keep a classroom running, and couldn’t believe some of the demands they made of her. Teachers deserve incredible respect, which they rarely receive, and it doesn’t matter whether they’re in K-12 or working in a university. The whole group is generally underpaid and underappreciated. Thanks, Mom, for not only showing me what it takes to work in a professional environment, but also the value of hard work and perseverance.

“A pair of yellow eyes caught the moonlight and locked onto hers.”

Mercy has always dreamed of becoming a werewolf trapper like her father. In Kanta, one must learn how to survive one way or another. A dark-skinned, blue-eyed young beauty, Mercy understands that she brings out the beast in monsters and men. When a routine werewolf delivery turns into a vicious assault from a pair of human traffickers, Mercy’s life changes forever. Somehow she must endure in a dangerous city where women and werewolves are hunted.

Available Now: Amazon | B&N | iBooks | Goodreads

I write about strange creatures. Typically they shouldn’t exist, or they have bled through from a different reality, or they’re pretending to be a crying baby in a crib. Sometimes that lands my stories in horror and other times in fantasy, but there’s always an air of strangeness to my tales. If you want to get a better feel for what I’m talking about, check out a few clips or read a few drabbles.

My work has appeared in a spattering of short story collections, but I do have a few novellas and novels in the pipeline. Other than talking about writing, I also talk about cryptozoology, werewolves, wildlife conservation, and of course kitties. I’ve also been known to nerd out about Batman and The Hobbit, and have recently discovered the cracktastic fun of Black Butler cosplay, so there will likely be more of these incidents.

By day I work as a web developer, so I’ll occasionally talk about web issues like finding the right theme.