I started reading romance novels when I was 12 or 13. I remember reading them and thinking they were enjoyable but they weren’t about people like me. Nearly all of the characters were non-disabled, as well as being white, cis and heterosexual, and the few characters that were disabled were villains. […]
I’ve been pretty much sick to my stomach for the last two weeks. I spent over a year writing a collection of steampunk novellas, Tales from the Gunpowder Chronicles and I ended up releasing it to only about a third of my readership—if even that much. […]
“A book is a magical thing that lets you travel to far-away places without ever leaving your chair.” Katrina Mayer
I grew up in the Philippines and coming from a poor family, I did not have the resources to travel out of my birth country until I was already a working adult. Thankfully, I had a bookworm for a father and a teacher for a mother who both encouraged me from a young age to read books that took me all over the world before I was able to actually travel to the locations in which they were set.
Judith Krantz’s I’ll Take Manhattan familiarized me with New York City landmarks prior to my first visit there in 1994. I had seen the grandeur of the Sydney Opera House through Emma Darcy’s Harlequin romances set in Australia before I beheld it for the first time in 1998. Peter Mayle’s
Unless your head is buried in the proverbial sand (or real sand if you’re attempting to get in touch with your inner ostrich), you can’t possibly have missed the outpouring of strength that is the #MeToo movement. Celebrities and soccer moms have met through a simple hashtag to form an unlikely alliance and create a revolution. […]
My journey to publication evolved over time, but it wasn’t until almost ten years ago that I became serious. I already had the equivalent of about 200,000 words on my computer and after achieving a degree in Creative Writing from New York University I was able to convert all those words into something that was worth reading. […]
I’ve been writing for about thirty years on and off and before that I wrote a little for pleasure in high school and college when I wasn’t writing papers for classes. I’ve written some long stories, like my new historical romance For Her Honor, a few essays on mostly political subjects, and an occasional family story or recollection. I have found writing to be rewarding and as much a part of my life as friends and family.
I’ve talked to lots of writers over the years, some who wrote lengthy pieces and were trying to get published, and many, many more who wrote memoirs or short stories, and universally all have said how satisfying writing can be. There are days, quite a few sometimes, when I want to break my laptop into a million pieces when I’m in the middle of writing a novel and I just can’t see what the next scene is, or I’ve been away from writing […]
Once upon a time there was a romance novelist who was an idiot.
That would be me.
I’m kidding – kind of. […]
