• Author Spotlight: M.A. Guglielmo Is Back with a New Novel!

    We have a winner! Joannie Sico, you are M.A.’s giveaway winner–she will be in touch with you. Thanks, everyone, for stopping by! We love talking to our readers! I’m excited to welcome M.A. Guglielmo back to the Spotlight! She’s here today with Rifted Hearts, book 1 in her new Rift World fantasy romance series. M.A. has a lead magnet for it, a short-story prequel (“Witch City Rift”) set in a future Salem, Massachusetts. The story is a free download for people who want to sign up for her newsletter. M.A. Guglielmo is a neurosurgeon, mother of two awesome daughters, and a life-long fan of speculative fiction. Her Italian grandmother may…

  • Sunday Snippet: The Validation Edition, II

    You know who I envy? Writers who have complete faith in their work and themselves. The ones who write a book and always know immediately that it’s great stuff and is going to sell like hotcakes. Or the ones who may know their work needs help, but believe so strongly in their own stories that they push on, striving to make them better. They never doubt their abilities or spend days wondering what they’re doing trying to write a novel, for Pete’s sake. They don’t wonder if they’re fooling everyone, including themselves, with this whole author thing. Sometimes, I can be that writer. When a scene works perfectly, when I’ve…

  • Author Spotlight: Fiona Marsden is Here with an Upcoming Release and a Fun Giveaway!

    We have a winner! Janine, you were chosen at random as Fiona’s giveaway recipient. She will be in touch with you. Thanks a million to everyone who stopped by! We do love connecting with our readers! I’m so happy to welcome Fiona Marsden, another author pal from “down under,” to the Spotlight this week. Fiona Marsden has lived most of her life in rural Australia, sharing her five-acre block with kangaroos, wallabies, and the odd koala and possum. Born and bred in Queensland, Australia, Fiona grew up in the far west of the state, lived for several years in Brisbane and is now settled on the Granite Belt in the…

  • Sunday Snippet: The Annnd… We’re Off! Edition

    And so we are. Today, Liz and I are headed down to the hills of Southern Indiana for a writing retreat–our annual winter event. This is our third January retreat. We stay in a beautiful and comfortable inn in the center of the cute little town of Nashville. The Artist’s Colony Inn is the perfect place for a winter retreat with large cozy rooms and a fab restaurant, plus breakfast is included with our room. Our first Nashville retreat was in 2022 and we happened upon the Artist’s Colony after our original hotel turned out to be … well, not really prepared for our visit. Anyway, we scooted into town,…

  • Sunday Snippet: The Eeek, I Need a Break Edition and a Question

    I’ve been working and writing pretty much nonstop for… well, for the last five years for sure and probably longer and I need a break. That’s not a whine…well, okay, maybe a little bit of a whine, but the fact is, I need to get away. Thankfully, I am getting away in about about a week! YAY! Liz and I are going on retreat for four days and I can’t wait. Retreat doesn’t mean I’ll stop writing. As a matter of fact our retreats are all about writing, but it does mean I’ll set my editing gigs aside for four days and focus entirely on the current WIP. Plus I…

  • Sunday Snippet: The Introducing the Walker Family & a Giveaway Edition

    Winner!! Sue Farmer, your name was selected from the comments as the recipient of an e-book copy of Home to River’s Edge and a $5 gift Amazon gift card! I’m sending you an email! Wow–I can’t believe January is nearly half over, can you? Or that it’s time to start promotion on the new River’s Edge series The Walkers of River’s Edge. Y’all know the Walkers, they’ve been around in other stories, including Home to River’s Edge. Jazz Weaver fell in love with Eli Walker, and at the end of Christmas in River’s Edge, Jenny and Gabe attended Jazz and Eli’s wedding on New Year’s Day. The other Walkers have…

  • Sunday Snippet: The I Shall Thole Edition

    It’s here. The New Year. It snowed yesterday and I opened the front door to take a picture and to inhale the crisp, cold scent of it. Snow brings a hush to the world and peace to my heart. So many people my age leave the state for warmer climes and I totally don’t get it. I like the change of seasons here in the Midwest, I don’t mind the snow–I don’t even mind being stuck inside if the snow makes travel hazardous. I’m writing the third book in The Walkers of River’s Edge series. It’s Cameron and Harper’s story and it’s coming hard, I confess. I’m not sure why…

  • Sunday Snippet: The End of Year Edition

    2024 looms–and that is indeed the word I mean to use–looms. Not just personally, but also in regard to the whole world. We are living in chaotic and scary times, and I keep thinking what can I do? The only answer I can come up with as 2023 closes is to hang on. Keep doing what I’m doing–write, work, spend time with my family, spread love, pay attention to what’s happening in the world…vote. This may be the election year that I put in time as a volunteer for a candidate. My stomach roils at the thought of what’s happening in Washington (not much thanks to a do-nothing off-the rails…

  • Sunday Snippet: The Holiday Reprise Edition

    Mes, Amies, it’s been a long week and I didn’t get to writing my snippet this week, so you get a repeat. It’s one of my personal favorites, so I hope you enjoy… Despite struggling financially, my mom always made the holidays a treat for me and my sibs. We always had a Christmas tree, the house was always filled with the scent of cookies baking and there was always, always music. Oh, the music of it all! Mom would go to the Firestone store or to the Marathon gas station every year and pick up their annual Christmas album to play on our old console stereo. Remember when a…

  • Author Spotlight: Bestie Liz Flaherty Dropped By Today!

    What’s more fun than having your bestie stop by the Author Spotlight? Not much! I’m so pleased to welcome Liz Flaherty to the blog! Liz Flaherty has 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 most every day) that the definition of success is having a good time. Along with her husband of lo, these many years, kids, grands, friends, and the occasional cat, she’s doing just that. Find her on Facebook or her blog, Window Over the Sink. A girl just can’t have too…