A Message from Maria
Exciting news from the writing front. I took second place in the First Coast Romance Writers Unpublished Beacon contest, short contemporary, with Willing to Learn. Happy news, considering this is only the second contest I've entered.
Speaking of contests, the deadline for the Golden Heart finalists to be announced is fast approaching. I entered the same manuscript so I'm hoping the other readers liked it as much as those from the Beacon contest. It's been a lot of fun sharing the friendly competitiveness with my fellow writers. We've spent many an afternoon talking about who we plan to acknowledge in our Golden Heart acceptance speeches.
After dutiful thanks to hubby and kids, I plan on making it known that I could not, would not finally have finished a manuscript had it not been for my ProSAC pals Wendy Kitchen, Chris Sterner and Susan Winer. For over a year, these gals and I meet once a week at a local coffee shop or library to work on our manuscripts. We started out as acquaintances, and now...well, I can't speak for them, but these three women have become part and parcel of my writing process.
Even after I moved from San Diego to Jacksonville, I've been able to stay in touch with the ProSAC Princesses. Wendy and I work together by phone very Friday afternoon, and I log in via a Web Cam to join their Wednesday night write-ins every so often. I'm counting down the days until we share a weeklong reunion at National in July.
So even if I'm not a Golden Heart winner this year, I feel like I've already taken the grand prize. To Wendy, Chris and Susan -- thanks. I couldn't have done it without y'all!
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ProSAC Blog:
One Day at a Time
This week's blog comes from
R. Ann Siracusa, author of the March 23 release
All For a Dead Man's Leg.
Tour director Harriet Ruby is a young, well balanced, smart and hardworking over-achiever. So far her life has been good but predictable and ordinary. Her biggest problem is that she does not have any real problems and is much too trusting.
Directing her first solo tour in Europe, she and her group get lost in the Kasbah, the old walled marketplace in Tangier. There, one of her tourists becomes ill and needs a doctor. Harriet can't find her way out. When a handsome and mysterious stranger, Will Talbot, pronounces the tourist dead and offers to help her smuggle the body out of Morocco, Harriet's once predictable life turns upside down and will never be the same.
Their fast-paced romantic romp through exotic foreign lands takes them in hot pursuit of murderers, smugglers, international terrorists, a dead man's secret and a healing, once-in-a-lifetime love.
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