Thursday, August 02, 2012

JULY WINNER!!


CONGRATULATIONS BW! You’re the July winner. To receive your free autographed books please contact C.J. Carmichael, Marin Thomas and Laura Marie Altom through their Web sites.
 

To enter the contest simply leave a blog comment and your name will go into the drawing. Simple and painless. And FREE BOOKS.

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Just back from exciting conference!


As I write this, my head is still in a whirl from attending the Romance Writers of America convention last week in Anaheim. Since I live 20 minutes away, I commuted from home, but it still felt like another world.

It was wonderful greeting readers at the Literacy Signing on Wednesday night. I value the people who read my books! Also, thanks to Harlequin for donating copies of The Baby Dilemma. Over the years, RWA has raised something like three-quarters of a million dollars to promote literacy. That’s an important cause.

The excitement also included seeing my editor, Kathleen Scheibling, and catching up on changes at Harlequin, everything from revamped covers for some lines (not American, though, at least for 2013), a writing contest, and the launch of new all-digital imprints edited by Malle Vallik. It was fun to see other editors I’ve worked with over the years, including Malle.

As always there were terrific workshops on a range of subjects, from craft to research to self-promotion. Each person explores what interests and benefits her at this stage of her writing career. Because I’m self-publishing some of my backlist, I attended seminars on related topics. Some were presented by heavyweights in the industry, including Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords.

Everywhere I turned, I touched bases with old acquaintances and made new ones. Members of my RWA chapter, Orange County, were well represented. I can’t begin to summarize everything and everyone. Just writing this is energizing me all over again.

I need to calm down and get back to working on the latest book in my Safe Harbor Medical miniseries!