A couple of weeks ago, I took part in my first Southern Kentucky Bookfest in Bowling Green, Kentucky. It’s a multi-genre event where numerous authors sign books and take part in panel discussions. I was on the romance panel with four other authors, but most of the time I spent in the signing room alongside other romance and suspense authors. Even though I was feeling pretty dreadful because the excessive pollen count had activated my almost-always-dormant asthma, I had a nice time chatting with readers and my fellow authors.

Here I am with Teresa Medeiros, whom I’m guessing I’ve known more than 10 years now though we don’t get the opportunity to talk very often. So it was nice to take the opportunity to catch up.

And here are some of the other fabulous authors in our area. From left: Susan Crandall, Molly Harper, fellow Harlequin American author Laura Bradford, and fellow MCRW member Bente Gallagher.

Hopefully I’ll be invited back next year and feel, oh, a million percent better than I did this time.

You know how people make New Year’s Resolutions? Well, I’m going to make some spring resolutions. And yes, I know spring has been around for a month now. But I’ve just recently gotten caught up with some deadlines and in catch-up mode this week. Resolution No. 1 is to update this blog every day, and the entire site at least once a week. So look for shiny new content from me daily!

Since last I blogged, I’ve turned in some edits on my October book, written and turned in an online read for eHarlequin that will we debut at the end of May (more on that as the day approaches), attended the Southern Kentucky Book Festival in Bowling Green where I got to hang out with Teresa Medeiros, Susan Crandall, Molly Harper, Karen White, Bente Gallagher and fellow Harlequin American author Laura Bradford. It was fun to catch up with Teresa. We’d not had the opportunity to talk in a long time. And Molly and I discovered we’re originally from the same neck of the woods and are both former newspaper reporters in Western Kentucky. Cue “It’s a Small World.” Come back tomorrow for a bit more on this event, including pictures.

And speaking of It’s a Small World, I had a fabulous three days at Walt Disney World in Florida prior to the RWA board meeting. Friends and fellow board members Stephanie Feagan, Terry McLaughlin and Stephanie’s daughter joined me for some quality time in Mouse-land. Here we are outside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, which has been Johnny Depp-ified since I was there last with the hubby in 2004.

The week after I got back from that trip to Florida, I went back to Ft. Walton Beach for an all-girls family trip. My sister and two nieces had flown in for a visit and we went to pick up my Mom and all headed to Ft. Walton Beach. I admit I was a bit nervous because Mom has some health issues and she’s not been more than an hour away from home since she had a heart attack last year. But she had never seen the ocean, so we rented a van and off we went. Here’s Mom during her first time to ever stand on a beach at the ocean. That’s the condo complex where we stayed in the background.

And here I am with my sister and nieces the night before they flew back home.

Little Niece was quite proud of her temporary tattoo she’d gotten from a machine at the Pizza Hut in my hometown.

My good friend Mary, who writes as M.J. Fredrick, has a new romantic adventure release that went on sale today. So I’m going to hold off one more day on putting up more conference pictures so I can share the following Q&A with M.J. By the way, Beneath the Surface is one of my absolute favorite stories she’s written. So I was so happy when this book was bought by her publisher and thrilled when she got the gorgeous cover.

Q. Tell us a little bit about Beneath the Surface.

A. Beneath the Surface is a reunion story between two archaeologists on the verge of divorce. Mallory Reeves brings the divorce papers to the Yucatan Peninsula for her husband to sign. When a storm strands her there, she has to work to remember why she left archaeology–and Adrian–in the first place.
Q. What drew you to excavating sunken ships as a story backdrop?

A. You know, I don’t remember. My baby brother loves archaeology and I remember bouncing a lot of ideas off of him. I think the original idea was for Adrian to have found a Phoenician ship in the Caribbean. The way it was written, though, it overwhelmed the romance. so I revised. And revised. And revised.

Another issue was that I needed Adrian to have a specialty, and I thought underwater archaeology would be a cool specialty.

Q. Would you ever like to dive a sunken ship?

A. God, no. I’m claustrophobic as all get-out. I couldn’t even get in the submarine at Disneyland!

Q. Your couple is already married in the story but on the verge of divorce at the beginning. This isn’t usually a type of story that attracts me, but yours is wonderful. It has the same feeling of newly falling in love about it. Have you ever written about other married couples, or is this your first?

A. This is my second estranged couple book. The first isn’t published, though I’d like to go back and work on it one day. I was intrigued by the movie Twister. In fact, the first scene is similar, though my heroine goes to my hero. I wanted to find out how people who could feel so strongly about each other once upon a time could be pulled apart. This was a struggle as well, finding the balance between what had split them up, but not making it so serious that they couldn’t recover, but also not making it a big misunderstanding. I think I struck the right balance.

I loved playing with their memories, too, feeding that information of their early passion throughout the story.

Q. What’s coming up from MJ Fredrick?

A. I have another book from Samhain coming January 2010 called Breaking Daylight. It’s a story of a mother trying to find her child with the help of an Army Ranger who would rather be doing anything else.

I also have another book, Don’t Look Back, my 2006 Golden Heart finalist, coming from The Wild Rose Press in 2010, but I don’t have a release date yet.

Be sure to get your own copy of Beneath the Surface (in electronic format) from Samhain Publishing by clicking this link and following the directions.

Well, you can probably tell my deadline is sucking up all my time because I didn’t get the second post about the conference up. But never fear! I’ve not forgotten.

On Sunday and Monday of conference week, I was pretty much in board member mode from the time I got up until the time I went to bed. I think we got out of the board meeting around 8 p.m. on Monday. Consequently, I slept in on Tuesday instead of going to play tourist. Two reasons: I was already run down and knew I’d get sick if I didn’t catch up on rest before the conference even started. And I’d broken my toe the night before my slamming it into the base of the bed. Ugh. Never had a broken anything before. I didn’t realize it was broken until the next morning when I discovered it was very sore, swollen and quite purple. Good thing I brought all open-toed shoes. So I didn’t think I wanted to go walking around museums all day.

Tuesday night, we had a party for the Romance Bandits and Bandita Jeanne’s house. Very fun — good food, good conversation, many laugh-out-loud moments. Plus, it was a hoot to hear Donna MacMeans’ GPS telling us how to get to Jeanne’s house in his proper British voice. Here for your viewing pleasure are several photos from the evening.

Donna MacMeans and Loucinda McGary

Nancy Northcott and Suzanne Welsh

Suz with Christie Kelley

The Golden Rooster eyeballing some of the yummies

Jeanne Adams, Anna Campbell and Caren Crane

Joan Kayse offering the GR one of her awesomely scrumptious chocolate chip cookies

Beth Andrews and Anna Sugden

My trip to Washington, D.C., for the RWA National Conference began July 10 when I spent the day driving to Charlottesville, Virginia, where I was to catch the train into D.C. the next morning. Long day of driving, but my trusty iPod loaded with music and PotterCast podcasts kept me company. I also got a call from my pal Mary (aka MJ Fredrick), and since, shall we say, she’s not a phone person, I knew the reason she was calling was because she’d contracted another book! Woohoo!

I really like driving through Virginia. It’s very pretty and so full of history — the perfect combination, in my opinion. I didn’t have time to stop to see anything, but someday I want to take a vacation to Virginia and just spend a week or two traveling around the state seeing all the sights I’ve not had the opportunity to visit yet. Plus, Charlottesville is in the mountains and significantly cooler. Good thing in the height of summer.

Saturday morning, I was up early to catch the train a bit after 7 a.m. (6 a.m. at home). I, my nearly over-the-limit luggage, and my pumpkin muffin from Panera headed toward D.C. I spent the time reading L.J. Smith’s The Awakening, the first in the Vampire Diaries series. I’m planning to review it in my August YA News & Reviews column on RomanceNovel.tv. I arrived at Union Station, hauled said luggage out to the taxi stand, and was off to the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. After unpacking, I called my good friend Michelle Butler, who is from the area. Michelle is one of my two oldest writing buddies, the other being Beth Pattillo. That’s oldest in that I’ve known them the longest, not that they’re old. Michelle and I had plans to go to dinner to celebrate her finishing her first manuscript

This is Michelle and me, a bit later in the week during the conference:

Michelle arrived bearing a gift. She knows I love Deadliest Catch, so she brought me this awesome T-shirt. Here’s the front…

and here’s the back.

After an afternoon of just catching up, we were off to Filomena’s, a lovely Italian restaurant in Georgetown. We had time to kill before our reservation, so we perused the offerings at Banana Republic. Michelle got a cute top, and I determined to lose weight so I could buy more cute tops. We had a very nice dinner, then walked through Georgetown to the nearest Metro station to catch separate trains back to our final destinations of the evening.

After leaving Rochelle, Illinois on my trip north, I headed to Madison, Wisconsin, where my agent is located. On the way out to dinner, she drove me through the University of Wisconsin campus. I know it’s cold in the winter, but the campus has some lovely lake views. We ate dinner at a place called Nau-ti-Gal on one of the lakes. We sat outside and listened to the live band that was set up and playing under the trees in the yard. The place was packed, and I had some absolutely delicious stuffed grouper. We talked business for awhile, then just some fun non-business stuff. After leaving there, we went to a Madison landmark, Ella’s Deli and Ice Cream Parlor. This place is amazing — not just the ice cream but also the decor. It’s full of old toys everywhere, even moving back and forth across the ceiling, and a carousel.

The next day, I headed to Green Bay for the WisRWA conference. I’d never been to Green Bay, and pretty much all I equated with it was the Packers and being really friggin’ cold. I made my way to the hotel attached to the Oneida Casino, where I checked in and found this in the lobby:

Let me just say it’s still very weird to see my name listed as a featured speaker, especially with New York Times best-selling author Sherrilyn Kenyon. Now, I know Sherry, and she’s as down to earth as they come, but it’s still a little squee moment to be listed with her. Here we are together.

I spoke at the conference on Making Your Setting Come Alive, and I was also able to reconnect with writers I’d met at this conference 2-3 years ago when it was last held in Madison.

Here I am with Meagan Hatfield and Ann Voss-Peterson.

And with Lori Devoti.

With fellow guest author Karin Tabke. We were next-door neighbors at the book signing.

With Rachel Berens-VanHeest.

I was also able to have a nice meeting with Harlequin Executive Editor Birgit-Davis Todd. She’s not my editor but does work closely with my editor.

With fellow writers Ann Curtis and Cat Shield (who won the WisRWA Fab Five award for best YA manuscript).

With Publishers Weekly blogger Barbara Vey.

I’ve got one more Wisconsin trip post in me, about my post-conference trip through the lovely Door County and the journey back south. Be sure to check in over the weekend for the final installment. And for those of you in the U.S., Happy 4th of July!

Back in early June, I took a trip north to Wisconsin to visit with my agent and to speak at the Wisconsin RWA chapter’s conference in Green Bay. Over the next couple of days, I’m going to put up photos from my trip.

The first stop was my hometown in Kentucky, where I had a book signing at the local library for my two newest books. Before the signing, however, it was annual Take Mom to the Cemeteries Day. We drive to several cemeteries in two counties to place flowers on the graves of family members. OMG, it was hot! I think I heard the grass screaming for mercy. Prior to heading out on our excursion, I sold a couple of books to my mom’s next-door neighbor, a very sweet lady who is 90 and is constantly on the go. I caught her on her Red Hat Society day, so she was dressed all in red and purple. Make note that this transaction took place around 2 p.m. That will matter later in this story.

After returning from traipsing over two counties, it was freshen up and change time. Then off to the library. This lovely flower arrangement from high school friend Kim and her mom, Tammy, who has a floral shop in town, was waiting for me. Isn’t it pretty?

Kim wasn’t able to make the signing, but Tammy did. I probably hadn’t seen her in 20 years and she looked the same! Kind of like Kim does. I, um, do not look like I did on graduation night.

During the signing, my cousin, Debbie, told me she had stayed up until 1 in the morning to finish my latest Harlequin American, Her Very Own Family. To which I said, “Yes! I’ve done my job.”

After signing books and chatting with friends and family, I took Mom back home. Helen poked her head out her door and said she’d already finished reading Her Very Own Family and really liked it. It was about 7 or 7:30 p.m. at this point. She also said she was getting ready to go back inside and start reading my YA novel, Heartbreak River. Did I mention that Helen is cool?

I drove to a town about an hour away next to the interstate so I could just hop on I-24 in the morning and head farther north.

Illinois is tall. The next day, I got a bit of a late start but I was still able to cover most of the Illinois miles. I even got a totally out-of-the-blue story idea that I was excited to get down before I forgot it. I also saw the oddest thing — a police officer had someone pulled off to the side of the road (wasn’t the interstate at this point; I took a little scenic detour). When I came up alongside them, it was a team of mules pulling a covered wagon with “Jesus Saves” written on the canopy. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why he was pulled over. I seriously doubt the mules were speeding.

In the northern part of the state, you start seeing wind farms with lots of enormous windmills like these. They’re oddly mesmerizing. If you’ve ever passed a truck on the interstate hauling just one of the blades for these things, you know how huge they are.

I also had a chuckle and had to take a picture at the rest area where I stopped at one point. It was called Willow Creek Rest Area. The original title for Her Very Own Family was The Willow Creek Cafe.

I stopped for the night in Rochelle, Illinois. I even got there early enough to go for a walk in the lovely, shaded neighborhood next to the hotel. Although I did get chilly. Remember the hot trek through all the cemeteries the day before? It had been about 90 degrees then. When I went for my walk to get out the driving kicks in Rochelle? 60 degrees.

Curious when I got back to my hotel, I logged on to Weather.com to check the temps in Wisconsin. When I saw they were going to be in the 40s at night and I’d only brought summer clothes, I e-mailed my agent and said, “I’m going to freeze to death!” Okay, obviously I didn’t since I’m typing this, but there were some shivering moments ahead. Come back for those moments and the rest of the story.

Haven’t blogged in a few days, but I’m been busy (as usual). But it’s been fun busy. I got to San Antonio on Thursday; then Mary and I headed to Kingsville (where we toured the famous King Ranch) and then to Corpus Christi (where we attended a PRCA rodeo). This portion of my trip was research for a rodeo book I’ll be working on when I get back home. It’s been awhile since I went to a rodeo, so that was fun. And the bonus? We got to spend the night out on Padre Island. Yay — seafood and sea air!

Yesterday, before heading back to San Antonio, we went out to Padre Island National Seashore to walk on the beach and so I could add another stamp in my National Parks Passport. Yes, I am a geek. Why do you ask? Then we went downtown for one of the Fiesta parades, but we had to leave before it started because Mary’s son’s car broke down.

Today, we had a birthday party for Mary with several members of her family and friends. Loads of fun — and loads of food. That, combined with the Guenther House biscuits and gravy I had this morning, have me feeling like I should flee San Antonio before I gain a few hundred pounds. Seriously, there is so much good food in this city that if I lived here I’d be enormous. Mary and I also went to several bookstores today to sign our books. Big fun!

I’m here for one more day, then it’s on to Houston for a meeting and then home.

It’s Mary’s birthday today, and as it happens I’m headed to Texas to visit her today. Woohoo! But while I’m on the road, I thought these photos might bring a birthday smile to her face — and perhaps yours too.

Dean: Dude! I told you I wanted to wish Mary a Happy Birthday first.

Sam: Jerk. You know I got dibs because we’re both from San Antonio.

Angel: I’m sorry, Buffy, I don’t have time to fight evil right now. I’m headed over to wish Mary a Happy Birthday.

Happy Birthday from the high seas, Mary!

Friday I drove up to Cincinnati and stayed with the fabulous and cool Liz Bemis, who is the program director for Ohio Valley RWA and a double Golden Heart finalist this year.  That night, we drove through the pouring rain that had been chasing me to Ohio to meet up with the equally fabulous and cool Jenn Stark for a yummy Mexican dinner.

Yesterday, I spoke to the OVRWA chapter on perseverance, a subject near and dear to my heart since it took me 11 years to sell. I know there were people in the audience sitting in the same boat I was such a short time ago — Liz and Jenn among them — where they’ve got tremendous talent and have found success on the contest circuit but haven’t quite made that first sale yet.

Liz Bemis, me, and Jenn Stark

Since it was the day before Easter, I rewarded audience participation with Carmello bunnies, Cadbury’s Creme Eggs, Peeps and a couple of free books. Hey, I’m not above some sugar-filled bribery.   The ladies were wonderful, and I was thankful for such a nice turnout the day before Easter. I even got to meet Becke Martin (aka Treethyme), who hangs out with us a lot over at the Romance Bandits blog.

With Becke Martin

After the meeting, some of us were about to chew our arms off we were so hungry. So before I hit the road home, I went to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory with Liz, Jenn, and two other great and interesting ladies named Amy and Libby (man, I hope I got that right or I’m going to be really embarrassed). Then it was time to hit the road home. I plugged in the iPod and passed the hours listening to PotterCast and an the Supernatural podcast.

Two funny signs seen along the way:

On a fence surrounding a field: For Sale, Used Cows

On the ladies restroom door inside a gas station/Subway combo: Now hiring servers. Apply within.

Two other notes:

Liz has a fun blog series going on at her site counting down the 100 days until the Golden Heart ceremony. Be sure to check it out.

And Jenn isn’t just a writer. She’s a whiz at author branding. Check out her branding site at www.knowyourbrand.com.