Posted by Sheila Connolly

My name is Sheila, and I'm a hoarder.

Following the mad holiday spree when everybody vies to collect the most presents, and then rushes to the local mall to swap them all, it seems appropriate to reflect on my character flaw. For the record, I love stuff. Mind you, I am not a shopaholic. I do not buy things just for the sake of spending money, nor do I bring them home and squirrel them away under the bed without even removing the…

Posted by Jeanne Munn Bracken

I got stuck in snowbanks three times last week, but hey! We had a White Christmas! Being a nostalgic time of year, Christmas reminds us of earlier times--happier or not. Christmas, it seems to me, comes in phases.

Phase I: Parents and their children sitting near the tree. I think our Christmases in upstate New York might…

Posted by Lorraine (L.L.) Bartlett

Back when we were courting (don't you just love that phrase?), my now-husband bought me a Christmas cassette (tells you how long ago THAT was) called Celtic Christmas, harp music by Kim Robertson. I fell in love with one piece called "And Sheep May Safely Graze" by, of all people, Johann Sebastian Bach. (Can you…

Posted (or not) by Sheila Connolly

Oh, please. tell me you're not trolling the blogs today. If you are, stop. Go hang out with your family. If you can't stand your family, go bake something with lots of sugar. Send me a sample.

I'll be back next week, but for the moment you're going to have to settle for this:…

posted by Leann Sweeney

This is a short story I wrote a long time ago, but I thought I'd pull it out of the vault for Christmas. I hope it speaks to at least one of you. Happy Holidays everyone.

posted by Doranna

Any author will tell you...when it comes to book production, there are so many ways to get it wrong. Even in the midst of a striking cover, of layers of copyediting and oversight, of proofing and editorial discussion...

Oh, yeah, the packaging details come out wrong.

Sometimes it's a subtle thing...something only…

posted by Lorraine (L.L.) Bartlett

Movin' On was the name of a TV show (1974-1976) about a couple of long-distance truckers (Will Chandler & Sonny Pruitt, played by Frank Converse and Claude Akins). I loved it. At one time, my ambition was to BE a long-distance trucker. (I was very young.) I used to love to drive, and the idea of driving a…

Posted by Sheila Connolly

Okay, here's the much anticipated report from My Trip to Tucson (no, don't go change the cat litter or take a nap–please! I promise I'll be brief). I went, I saw, I conquered. All my flights arrived on time (two were actually early!), and my luggage arrived too. This alone may qualify for some sort of prize. Oh, wait–that was the prize. I'm not complaining. I attribute the smooth return legs to the blessing I received from a chatty…

posted by Jeanne Munn Bracken

My children will never forget our family vacations. They tended to involve recalcitrant vehicles stuffed too full with people, animals and enough accoutrements to launch a world war. Just going for a daily picnic required enough stuff (high chairs, potty chairs, playpens, etc.) that we looked like Okies rollin' down the highway.…

posted by Doranna

Whenever I travel, I take work with me. Whether it's to the doctor's office (I'm typing this in a parking lot even now) or an agility weekend or even running errands--you never know when you might get stuck in traffic!

But generally, when I go on weekend trips, I hunt hardcopy work--polishing or edits or various…

Posted by Lorraine (L.L.) Bartlett

After struggling for months, I finally came to the end of my Work In Progress. Oy. What a relief.

Okay, this isn't my first book. You'd think that after eight or nine completed manuscripts it would get easier, not harder. Well, you would be WRONG! How often have I heard an author say (and usually in writing, not verbally) that after each completed manuscript, they find they've forgotten how to write a book.

Well, it's true. I…

Posted by Sheila Connolly

If all goes well, this will be posted while I am somewhere else. In fact, I'm should be in a place I've never been before: Tucson, Arizona. This is rather funny, since I've now completed two books set in Tucson. But that was Berkley's idea, not mine. Still, I want to get it right. I want to collect the details: the way the air smells, the way the mountains look in the early light, the sights and sounds of the desert. I have never seen a desert. I…

posted by Leann Sweeney

I am back after my adventure in the Pacific Northwest where I met my new granddaughter, Maddison Grace. I didn't write, I didn't do much of anything except hold that precious baby for three weeks--well I did cook and do dishes, which my son and daughter-in-law desperately needed someone to do! But what a wonderful…

posted by Jeanne Munn Bracken

So there we were. Sunday evening, heading down the dark highway in central New Hampshire. We were pretty quiet, thinking about my sister's husband, who is dying in a Vermont hospital. It looks like one of those awful, sudden things, except that nobody knows how much longer, etc. Anyway, we were sad.

A storm was heading our way, forecast to start soon, and we were hoping to beat it home, but Ray is not a racecar driver, so all was…

posted by Doranna

Okay, weird little stutter start to this one--because those of you who want an update on Connery Beagle can find one in his words on his LiveJournal...

Ahem.

My author copies of Dun Lady's Jess arrived the other day. Holy…

Posted by Lorraine (L.L.) Bartlett

I like to start the holiday season early by listening to my Ch ristmas CDs in late October. Naturally, this drives my hubby up the wall. I start out slow with piano instrumentals and slowly move into the more elaborate instrumentals, and finally into vocals by the likes of Celine Dion, Amy Grant, and even Ray…

Posted by Sheila Connolly

My sister's son produced an heir just over a year ago: Carter Matthew Payne. Since my daughter is a long way from even contemplating offspring, this darling young man (whom I have not yet met) is my sole connection to the…

Posted by Guest Blogger Kate Flora

One of the challenging things about growing up and going out on my own was deciding which family traditions I would keep, and what new traditions I would choose for myself. By the time I had children, there was annual Fourth of July picnic at the family farm, a visit to the Union Fair, a family visit over Labor Day. Family Thanksgiving. We had a year punctuated by pleasant annual events.

Now that I’m nearing that point in life where I’m…