Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance Authors

by Joanne Kennedy When I was a kid, my sister and I used to hunt for four-leafed clovers in the grass. These elusive little good-luck charms never seemed to turn up when you were looking for them--but when you least expected it, you'd stumble across one by accident. That's how luck works. By definition, it's a happy accident of fate, and I always seem to stumble into good fortune when I least expect it. And while hard work, perseverence, and focus help determine our lives, it's often luck that has the most influence in leading us to our destiny. Here are four strokes of good luck that led me to the here and now: Finding my Place: I moved out West in 1992. At the time, I thought I was running away from home. In reality, I was running to home--to the place where I belonged, and the place that has defined me ever since. Finding my Hea rt: I met my husband by chance. I was running a bookstore; he was a customer. We definitely weren't looking for love, but after ...

Cinnamon rolls with gooey melted frosting. Chocolate chip cookies straight from the oven. A hot fudge sundae with rich, hot fudge sauce dripping into swirls of melted ice cream. All these things can be hot and sweet at the same time. So why are "sweet" and "hot" opposites when it comes to romance? When the term "sweet" is applied to a romance novel, it means the book has heart and emotion. But it can also be a code word for "no explicit sex." I've had this label applied to my books, and one one level it makes sense. I admit that my worldview is a little on the sweet side. I believe people are basically good, that neighbors care about each other, and that love is a risk worth taking. So it's understandable that reviewers call my Western romances "sweet." But my cowboys and cowgirls resent the label. They might be nice people with big hearts, but they know how to burn up a bedroom. And I don't believ...

When you're a writer, publication seems like the top of the mountain. As you submit, submit, and submit some more and endure rejection after rejection, it takes everything you've got to keep on climbing. "The Call" seems like the fulfillment of all your dreams, the summit of Everest. You're ready to plant your flag, lay claim to your alphabetical spot on the bookstore shelves, and bask in the glory of hard-won success. But if you're ambitious enough to endure the road to publication, "the call" will probably give you a brief (and admittedly stunning) moment of satisfaction--and then it will open up more vistas you want to explore. Once you get published, you'll want to stay published. You'll see a spot on a bestseller list looming up ahead, and you'll want to reach that peak, too. You'll have to survive th e biting winds of reviews, the misty, uncertain path of promotion, and a million other stumbling blocks along the way. The goal on...

My cowgirl heroines Libby Brown, Charlie Banks, and Jodi Brand are three very different women, but they all have one thing in common: they're part of a long tradition of women moving west to build new lives. The West is the best possible setting for a girl-power fish-out-of-water story, because throughout history this rough open country has inspired women to escape society's constraints and accomplish things that would have been impossible elsewhere. I've collected three of my favorite wild Western women here - women who met the challenges of the frontier and did much more than merely survive. Wild West entrepreneur Nellie Cashman traveled west seeking her fortune as a prospector and worked as a cook at various mining camps in Nevada until she saved enough gold dust to open the Miner's Boarding House in Panaca Flats in 1872. Described as "pretty as a cameo and tougher than a two-penny nail," Nellie ofen fed and housed down=-on-their-luck miners for free. Late...

This month's posts are all about decadence. How do you treat yourself, my fellow Casababes ask?I treat myself pretty well, thank you, but there are occasions when I think I deserve an extra-special treat - like when I have a really productive writing day, or get the house looking respectable for a change. Or right now, when the topic of this blog reminds me that maybe I don't treat myself often enough. Excuse my while I go dish out a big bowl of ice cream and slather it with massive amounts of chocolate sauce. (Imagine slurping and noshing noises and sighs of piggy satisfaction.) Okay, I'm back. While I was eating the ice cream, I got to thinking about what really feels decadent and self-indulgent to me. One of my favorite rewards is time with a book. Time that I've blocked out deliberately, when I don't feel pressured or preoccupied with other things I should be doing - like writing books for other people to read. I recently had a pretty good excuse for self-indul...

It's amazing how many beginnings, in stories and in life, are based on chance. A serendipitous encounter, a chance meeting, a happy accident -- life would be dull if it weren't for the curveballs flung by a playful universe. Just when you think you've got your life figured out -- splat! -- everything changes. In romantic comedies, that moment is the "meet cute" - a situation that brings the hero and heroine together in a way that lets them clash, tangle, and ultimately fall in love. The "meet cute" is almost always awkward or embarrassing, and leads to conflict and hence, a plot! Screwball comedies are the prime place for finding "meet cutes." It Happened One Night, Bluebeard's Eighth Wife, Bringing Up Baby -- they all hinge on a start-up scene where the hero and heroine meet in a zany, unexpected manner and are irresistibly attracted despite the barriers thrown in their way. The chance meeting feeds our fantasies because deep down, we w...

Real life doesn't come with neat, tidy endings. Our lives are full of dropped threads and open-ended questions. Maybe that's why a story well told is such a pleasure. A good book fulfills our need to see situations wrapped up in a satisfying way. And if that wrap-up manages to worm some essential truth into our subconscious, we like it even better. When I first started writing, endings were always the hardest part. No matter how carefuly I plotted and planned, I'd reach the last chapter of my story and realize that despite the fact that I'd followed all the rules, the ending rang false, like a discord at the end of a lovely piece of music. The hero and heroine were together, the plot threads were tied in a neat bow, but there was something lacking. While I was fussing over this issue, my husband asked me what was wrong. I told him I couldn't find the ending for my book. "Well, what's the epiphany?" he asked. "And what triggers it?" That was i...

by Joanne Kennedy When we gather around the table on Thanksgiving Day, we should recognize the fine qualities of the all-American turkey - you know, the extraordinarily fat, round one lying flat on his back with his legs sticking up in the air. No, I'm not talking about Grandpa Joe over there on the sofa digesting his dinner; I'm talking about the actual turkey. His supine pose isn't the only similarity the festive fowl bears to your family and friends. Take a good look at a real live turkey sometime. A tom turkey has a wrinkly face, beetled brows, wattles, and hair in his ears - just like Grandpa Joe. He's constantly red in the face from exertion and fury, and is so profoundly overweight that he has difficulty standing upright even when he's not watching a bowl game on ESPN. Hens, on the other hand, are thinner and seem to be in a perpetual state of frazzled panic - just like the cook in the kitchen. Glancing around the table, you might note other similarities bet...

I want to be haunted. Nothing too scary. I don't want the walls to bleed or anything; I just want a good story to tell. Maybe a being from another world could send mysterious lights bobbing down the hallway. Or maybe there could be a little fiendish laughter emanating from the attic once in a while. I'd like that. But no. I am apparently the antighost. I've lived in many houses that should be haunted, but the minute I move in, everything gets all normal. Bummer. For instance, my grandparents' farm in Maine was built in the 1800s. The attic was my favorite place to play, because it was full of old stuff and I was sure there had to be a ghost up there. There were framed sepia photographs of people in fancy clothes, and all of them had somber expressions and weird dead eyes. I later learned this was because they had to sit still and stare at the camera for ten minutes to get their pictures taken, but at the time I was convinced that all my ancestors were zombies. There w...

The best thing about writing is the books -- not just the books I get to write, but the books I get to read. I've worked in bookselling all my life, so I've always had a good excuse to spend my time reading anything and everything. But writing has changed and enriched the way I read. There's no better way to learn the craft of writing than by reading good books. Through reading, I've had some of the best writers in the world of romance teach me how to put a story together, and each of my favorites taught me how to add the elements that make it stand out. So here's my syllabus for a course in romance writing, covering a comprehensive assortment of skills through writers with special strengths. Voice: Janet Evanovich. There's a reason why the Stephanie Plum series became a bestseller. The screwball New Jersey bounty hunter is a fantastic character, but what really makes the novels work is the way Evanovich lets Stephanie's unique personality shine through he...

For the season of harvest and abundance, I've collected a cornucopia of cowboys for you. Over at My Overstuffed Bookshelf , we've been discussing our favorite movie and TV cowboys, and right now, there's a clear winner: Little Joe of Bonanza, also known as Michael Landon. Another clear favorite is Roy Rogers, though I don't see him as a romantic hero. I always figured he was taken, what with Dale and Trigger and all! And then there's Rowdy Yates, the role that started Clint Eastwood on the path to cowboy stardom. Before Clint became the steely-eyed, raspy-voiced Man with No Name, he was a handsome young heartthrob in the TV series Rawhide. It surprised me that so many romance readers chose what I call the "cozy" cowboys - the good guys with more honey than vinegar in their personalities. After all, don't readers like alpha heroes? The tough guys? Maybe not. I think that softer side is one big reason for the popularity of cowboy heroes. A cowboy's ...

Today, One Fine Cowboy arrived in bookstores across the country. Here's a picture of my friend Laura holding up the first copies of my second contemporary Western romance to arrive in Cheyenne! She's wishing it was a real cowboy... Seriously, I'm thrilled that cowboy Nate Shawcross and Jersey girl Charlie Banks are finally being let loose on the world! I hate to play favorites, but Nate is my favorite cowboy so far, and Charlie's my favorite heroine. The two of them have been with me a long time, pestering me to get their story out there so they can finally get together for good. When Nate and Charlie first meet, they're not sure what to think of each other. He rides into her life on horseback, silouetted by the late afternoon sun, and she can almost hear the eerie whistle of a spaghetti Western in the distance. He thinks the woman beside the broken-down car on the road to his ranch is just a bad attitude in a pretty package - or maybe a strangely attractive alien...

Change is good - especially in romance novels. All good love stories are about change. After all, if the hero and the heroine know from the get-go that they're made for each other, what's the point in telling their story? You might as well get right to the good stuff! But good stuff that comes without a struggle just isn't that good. Heroes and heroines have to fight to reach their goals - and they need a bigger goal than just finding love. They have to want something else: a rewarding career, or maybe peace of mind. Something that a relationship with each other would make even more unattainable. But sometimes they learn that the goal they're so set on isn't what they really need. That's what happens to heroine Charlie Banks in my September release, One Fine Cowboy . As the story begins, Charlie has a very definite goal - a plan with a capital "P." She's going to finish school, get her Ph.D. in psychology, and move on to some kind of rewarding wor...

Changed? You bet I've changed. Twenty years ago, I lived on a farm in Pennsylvania. My roots ran so deep I couldn't imagine ever leaving. Then I moved to Wyoming. This week, I went back and visited my family and my old stomping grounds. It was a great visit, but today, on the last leg of the long trek back to my adopted state, I realized how much Wyoming has become my home. The East is beautiful, with its rolling hills and leafy forests. While I was there, I noticed a lot of things we don't have in Wyoming - old stone farmhouses, black and white dairy cows, fountains of flowers growing in naturally rich, dark soil. We don't have a big selection of fancy restaurants, either, and we definitely don't have anything like Wegman's gourmet grocery stores. But Wyoming has so many things I missed, even after a week. We have mountains - mountains with snow on top, even in August. We have sagebrush and antelope, and even buffalo dotting the hills along the interstate. (Y...

The Declaration of Independence declares, among other declarative things, that we all have a right to "the pursuit of happiness." For some of us, that run is harder than it is for others, but we all enter the race. Some of us rush headlong toward bliss; others hang back, helping those who aren't as fast. And some of us trip and fall right out of the starting gate, sprain our ankles, and have to crawl the rest of the way. Being the first to cross the finish line doesn't matter in this race. It's a long run, so what matters is finding out what kind of runner you are so you can enjoy the trip. Are you a speed racer who won't be happy unless you're whipping past the competition? Or are you a helper, who finds their victory in making sure everyone has a fair chance? Or are you like me, standing in the middle of the track, watching the runners flow around you while you figure out how to immortalize the moment in a painting or story? Chances are, you won't w...

Summer in Cheyenne may be short, but it's beautiful. Eighty-five degrees, no humidity, blue skies and, best of all, Frontier Days. For the last week in July, the town gets taken over by the cowboys - and the kids, and the clowns, and the cows. The celebration kicks of with a cattle drive that follows the highway into town and passes through Lion's Park on its way to the rodeo grounds. There are three parades, too, complete with marching bands, homemade floats, and prancing horses in silver-bedecked saddles. There are two Pancake Breakfasts where the local Kiwanis teams up with the Boy Scouts to feed the whole town. The batter is mixed in a cement truck; the lines snake up one street and down another as hungry tourists and townspeople wait their turn to have golden-brown panakes flipped off the griddle and into the air to be caught on plates by the Scouts and served steaming hot. The record? 16,000 served in one day That's people, not pancakes . On weekday mornings, you ca...