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Sunday (Whoops, Thursday) Snippet: The Happy New Year Edition
Today is the first day of 2026, and frankly, I’m skipping resolutions and a word for the year and planning all the ways I’m going to succeed and be amazing this year. My plan for 2026 is to simply survive another year of this regime. Well, okay, not simply survive, I also intend to do what I can do to resist and get educated on how I can best fight for our Constitution and the rule of law. That might mean donating to causes, marching in protests, and voting in important elections, but it won’t mean posting and reposting that resistance on Facebook. On Facebook, I’m preaching to the choir.…
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Author Spotlight: Bestie Liz Flaherty Joins Me Today–Always a Pleasure!
I’m so glad to welcome my writing bestie, author Liz Flaherty to the Spotlight today. I stole her bio right off her website because it charms the socks off me. She wanted to shake the dust of central Indiana farm country and move to the city, get rich, wear designer clothes, and write books. Well, she writes books. Liz Flaherty lives five miles from where she grew up, only now she relishes the sights and sounds and scents of the fields around her, doesn’t care much about clothes, and thinks being rich would probably have been overrated anyway. She’s spent the past several years enjoying not working a day job,…
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Petticoats & Pistols Authors Are Doing Up the Holidays with Panache!
Hey, Mes Amis, happy holidays! I am a new author with Petticoats & Pistols–a blog that has been around for longer than I’ve been published. I was so delighted when they asked me to join them because they are a fun group of great writers! Becoming a part of their circle was another lovely perk of switching up my setting to Marietta, Montana. These gals–the fillies–are so active all over social media, and full of great ideas for promotion. Here’s what we’re doing for the holidays this year! For the holidays, we’re all sharing some news about our holiday romances, so stop by and find some new holiday reads. In…
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Author Spotlight: Sinclair Jayne Brings a Touch of Autumn Magic
We have a winner! Germaine Brown-Corbitt, you are Sinclair’s giveaway winner. Sinclair will be in touch with you. Thanks to everyone who stopped by! I love it when my dear editor and fellow Tule author comes to visit. Sinclair Jayne is such a remarkable storyteller that any new book from her goes immediately onto my TBR. The Southern Love Spells series has kept me intrigued and delighted. I can’t wait to read A Kiss of Southern Magic, which releases today from Tule Publishing. Sinclair Jayne has loved reading romance novels since she discovered Barbara Cartland historical romances when she was in sixth grade. By seventh grade, she was haunting the library…
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Author Spotlight: Elsa Winckler Is Here with Christmas Joy!
I love hearing about how other author’s minds work as they’re writing and how sometimes we are surprised by what happens in our own books. The characters take over and we’re left with, “Really? That’s where you’re going?” It happened to my friend, Elsa Winckler as she wrote her newest holiday romance, which released on November 11, and she’s here to tell us all about it. Elsa has been reading love stories for as long as she can remember and when she ‘met’ the classic authors like Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, Henry James, the Brontë sisters, etc. during her Honors studies, she was hooked for life. Although her three gown-up…
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Authors on the Road Day 5.5
Well, we’re packing, finishing up last-minute little details as we prepare for our trip back to real life. Right now, we’re both sipping coffee and we have the fireplace going for a last few moments of the bliss of writing together by the fire. One sorta goofy thing that’s happened here is that the air is very dry and the static electricity is through the roof. Yesterday morning I woke up with my hair looking like I’d stuck my finger in a light socket. It took dampening my brush and running it through my hair to calm it down. This morning Liz had the same issue. We really wished we…
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Authors on the Road Day 4
Liz takes over the blog today to share Day 4 of our writing retreat… After our obligatory hair appointment today, sporting curls on Nan and my usual flat-iron look on me, we went to lunch at Vinny Vanucchi’s in downtown Galena. We had excellent service and excellent food and opted not to have one of the most decadent looking desserts I’ve ever forced myself to turn down. Only minutes later, we were in a candy shop and never mind what we were doing there. What happens in Galena stays in Galena. Then we went on the history part of the day, enjoying a long and enlightening tour of the beautiful…
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Authors on the Road Day 3
Well, kids, I’m tired, I’m brain dead after a day of writing and I’ve had too much wine (I blame Liz for that, although I poured it myself, but she could’ve stopped me.) That’s me in my “writing sweater”–a very tattered sweater that once belonged to my sister Kate, who left us way too soon. I wear to write because it’s magic–words come when I have it on. I think they come in through the holes… I could be wrong about that, but I don’t think I am. It was a day of all writing all the time. We didn’t even leave the condo building. It was a miserable weather…
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Author Spotlight: E. Elizabeth Watson is here with Highlanders!
I love it when the Spotlight shines on an author I’ve met in person! E. Elizabeth Watson and I met at the Tule Author Retreat a couple of years and she was a delight! We even shared an early-morning writing session while we were there! I’m excited to welcome her to the Author Spotlight today! Elizabeth is convinced life is better with good coffee, chocolate, and a pair of hiking boots. Ever since her elementary school librarian “published” her epic childhood tales—complete with laminated handmade covers—she’s enjoyed exploring the world through literature. She fell in love with the harsh Texas desert where she found inspiration for charismatic cowboys and the…
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Author Spotlight: Liz Flaherty Is Here with Holiday Romance!
Liz Flaherty wanted to shake off the dust of central Indiana farm country and move to the city, get rich, wear designer clothes, and write books. Well, she writes books. She lives five miles from where she grew up, only now she relishes the sights and sounds and scents of the fields around her, doesn’t care much about clothes, and thinks being rich would probably have been overrated anyway. She’s spent the past several years enjoying not working a day job, making terrible crafts, and writing stories in which the people aren’t young, brilliant, or even beautiful. She’s decided (and has to re-decide nearly every day) that the definition of…