The Cowboy’s Baby is Gretchen Rix’s first published novel. Two of her short stories (When Gymkhana Smiles and The Taking of Rhinoceros 456) have also been published as short ebooks for Amazon.com’s Kindle. Later this year she will publish her second novel, Arroyo, a pulp fiction action adventure Western horror tale set in 1893 Texas. A Lockhart-based murder mystery is her next goal.
Ms. Rix grew up in Greenville, Texas, in the early sixties when it was still okay to run up and down the street yelling like Tarzan and ride your bike all over town, ride horses through other people’s fields and trick-or-treat without adult escort each Halloween. She doesn’t like to admit to having run through the DDT clouds as the city exterminated mosquitoes, but she did. It was fun.
High school graduation was followed by a degree in journalism from the University of Houston and several years working as a professional writer for small companies and newspapers. Then jobs as a typist (in the pre-computer age), dispatcher for a trucking company, and finally claims processor for a insurance corporation took up most of the rest of her time. Now retired, she’s writing more.
She is a member of Romance Writers of America, The Irving Club, and Texas Democratic Women of Caldwell County. She can often be seen early mornings being walked by the family dog Boo Radley on the streets of Lockhart. Her recent success as a writer is attributable to her family’s support, the Austin RWA writing challenge of 100 words a day, and retirement.
“Don’t ever let anyone tell you writing isn’t fun,” she says. “It is.”
The Cowboy’s Baby, which is a romantic novel, was written entirely from the title and the setting. In an article published by Romance Writers of America ten years ago they affirmed that any book with the words “baby” or “cowboy” in its title would be bound to sell well. Ms. Rix was not the only writer to put the two words together and attempt a bestseller. She picked a golf course residential community for the setting from personal history and then moved it into Central Texas when she relocated to Lockhart in 2009. The novel is loosely based on the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale and also involves goats eating toilet paper.
Gretchen’s sister Roxanne Rix has started a small publishing business as Rix Café Texican (RixCafeTexican.com) that will eventually branch out from publishing only Gretchen’s work to feature other Central Texas writers and creative people. The trade paperback of The Cowboy’s Baby is its first endeavor. Both Buffalo Clover on the square in Lockhart and The Citrus Peel consignment shop on San Antonio carry copies.
Gretchen writes a blog called Rix Café Texican at http://gretchenrix.com. You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook. Follow the progress of the Rix sisters’ publishing company at http://rixcafetexican.com.
