Today fellow Ohio girl and NEORWA chapter-mate, Christy McKee, sits on the hot seat. Christy’s latest book, The Truth About Lilly, was released on Valentine’s Day. Welcome, Christy! Tell us a bit about you. Where do you live, and how long have you been writing? Thank you so much for having me today. For starters, Read More
Category: romance writing
The Surprising Truth About Contractions
I use contractions when writing dialogue. When I don’t, the language can seem stilted and unnatural. I have long wondered how common contractions were in days past, but I was afraid to look it up and find that they weren’t common, because then I would have to make a decision: use historically inaccurate language to make Read More
Author Interview: Marlow Kelly and a Giveaway!
I am very pleased to welcome author Marlow Kelly, whose most recent historical romance, A Woman of Love, was released by The Wild Rose Press on March 4. Thanks for visiting today, Marlow! Tell us a bit about you. Where do you live, and how long have you been writing? Hi, my name’s Marlow. I Read More
Author Interview – Marilyn Baron
Today I welcome Marilyn Baron, whose latest book, The Widows’ Gallery, was released by The Wild Rose Press on February 11. Tell us a bit about you. Where do you live, and how long have you been writing? A native of Miami, Florida, I’m a corporate public relations consultant in Roswell, Georgia, in north Atlanta. Read More
In Which I Have Very Little to Say
This morning before breakfast I spent about an hour and a half writing a lengthy, thoughtful post to weigh in on the latest round of romance bashing sparked by a recent article in the New Republic. I reviewed some of the responses–in the Washington Post, Kirkus Reviews, and Eloisa James’ interview on vulture.com–but when all Read More
In Defense of Romance
A few weeks ago I attended a portion of the annual Cleveland Rocks Romance conference, sponsored by the Northeast Ohio chapter of RWA. The fabulous Christie Craig was the speaker–if you ever meet her, ask her to tell you the story of the Festiva, the cowboy, and the burning mattress. I was laughing so hard Read More
Contest News!
Awhile back I gave you my musings on contests. I still agree with everything I said in that post, but now my perspective is slightly different. I mentioned that I entered three contests this past spring. In the first, which was NEORWA’s Cleveland Rocks Romance contest, I didn’t come close to being a finalist. However, Read More
Reality in Historical Romance
One of the blogs I follow is Hearts Through History, which features some marvelous posts on history in general, as well as historical romance in particular. A recent post by Merry Farmer caught my eye, about historical body image. The concept of skinny, as she notes, is purely a 20th century notion, but most heroines Read More
Fighting Fear
Once upon a time, I knew a guy who spent three years in law school, but when it came time to take that last class to graduate, he just didn’t bother. His employer gave him time off to study for and take the bar exam, but although he took the time, he never took the Read More
Writing Contests
This post is sort of an update of a piece I wrote last year over on New Kids on the Writers Block, when I was in a contest frenzy. I’ve been in contest mode this spring as well, serving as a category coordinator and a backup judge for the Cleveland Rocks Romance Contest, and as a Read More