Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance Authors

When I take in my surroundings, the thing I see in the greatest abundance is books. No, I don't see that pile of laundry or those dirty dishes. Some people have selective hearing. I have selective vision. I have books overflowing from my bookshelves, stacked in the corner of my bedroom, on my bedside table, on the coffee table, and stored in huge boxes in the basement for when I need to replenish my supply upstairs. BOOKS, BOOKS, EVERYWHERE BOOKS!! Some of these might look familiar to some of you. I have a book in my purse, my desk, my car, and the bathroom cupboard. They're tucked away all over the place! I tend to read four or five novels at a time and I have no plans to decrease my bookly abundance. I just keep adding to it. I DO plan to read every last one of them. I love books. The weight of them, the look of them, the smell of the paper. Their multi-colored covers all lined up on a shelf. I have always loved books and hope I'm never without them in my life. And don...

In keeping with the theme of Abundance this month, I thought for a while about what my favorite things are to have in abundance. The never ending basket of chocolate at my day job? Wonderful friends? Fan mail? Honestly, I love each and every one of those items and I can never have enough of any of them. But I am an author and so my mind eventually circled back to the art of story-telling. And do you know what I love in abundance? Secondary characters. How random is that? But these are the characters who make movies, television shows and books really sparkle. They add depth and dimension that wouldn’t be there without them. They make you want to know their story and they tell you so much about the protagonist with very little effort. One of my favorite movies of all time is Casablanca . I am a huge Humphrey Bogart fan, but for me, it was the secondary characters who made that movie the classic it is – from the self-serving Captain Renault to the loyal, piano-playing Sam to the idealist...

I live in southern Minnesota, where - for the non-frozen half of the year, anyway - agricultural abundance abounds. Early fall is the time of spectacular backyard gardens, wild temperature swings, colorful leaves, tasseling corn, and farm equipment bustling slowly and self-importantly down the road, snarling up traffic. ;-) Everywhere I look, I see visible signs of abundance - especially in our garden, which we harvested last weekend - with some help from our younger cat, Slinky. It was 90' F. in the shade. The mosquitoes were horrible. And what were we doing? Digging, pulling, and gathering. Peeling, chopping, and cutting. Blanching, bagging, and freezing...until our eyes were bugging and our butts were dragging. We had cucumbers, carrots, corn, eggplant, tomatoes, green beans, ground cherries (ick) and okra (shudder) coming out of our ears. Being no fan of heat, humidity, or frankly physical labor, I think if I had to touch one more piece of produce that weekend, I was gonna scr...

I love this month’s theme of abundance—there’s so much that can apply to this post for me, particularly on a professional level. Many of you have probably noticed I’ve been sporadic in my comments as of late, and I have an ABUNDANCE of new authors to thank for that :-) After the RWA National conference this past July, I really noticed how many authors we actually have signed to our romance line! There was this great moment during our spotlight when Deb asked all of our signed authors to stand up, and we took up at least a few rows. It was a great site to see from on stage, and one that really put how far we’ve grown over the last 3 years into perspective. However, new authors means MORE authors, and MORE authors means MORE of everything: more planning, more review copies, more new contacts, more blog tours, more specific requests, more more more. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining (exactly), but it seems like with more authors, I have less time to do the little fun things, li...