Thank you to Carol Cooper who awarded this badge to the Write Romantics. We already loved Carol for inviting us to review her wonderful novel, being interviewed for the blog and for agreeing to write the introduction to our anthology, but now we love her even more.
In case you didn’t know, Carol is a doctor, teacher, writer, broadcaster and mother, whose debut novel, One Night at the Jacaranda, has received a wealth of rave reviews on Amazon. Carol is also a successful writer of non-fiction books, mainly on child health and parenting, and is The Sun newspaper’s doctor. As well as being a great friend of the Write Romantics blog, Carol has a fab blog of her own. If you’ve been missing out on Carol’s beside manner up until now, then you really should check out her blog.
Now we’re passing on the award to ten other bloggers. They might not get quite as excited over blog awards as we do – perhaps they’ve already had thousands – but we’re going to recognise them anyway, because their blogs have been influential to us.
Diana Blacklock was nominated by Helen R, both of whom are based in Australia. Diana’s writing has been influential to Helen and her blog regularly features other writers who open up new worlds and add even more titles to Helen’s bulging Kindle! Just the blog to visit if you’re wondering what to read next.
Sheila Norton, was nominated by Deirdre. Sheila is a member of the Romantic Novelist’s Association and was traditionally published for some time, but is now blazing a trail for indie publishing. Deirdre also recommends Sheila’s book Yesterday, which is set in the sixties and is well worth checking out.
Sharon Booth’s blog, the Moongazing Hare was nominated by both Alex and Julie – I might well have got in there too, if they hadn’t been so quick! Sharon’s posts are always entertaining and she has a great writing style. Sharon is brilliant at networking and supporting other authors and we are absolutely delighted that she is going to be a guest in our anthology.
Sarah Lewis who runs the My Eighties blog has been influential on me (Write Romantic, Jo) for many years, having been one of my besties for (*clears throat*) 32 of them. Of course we met in a test tube! Sarah’s blog is a must read for fans of what surely was the best decade of all time (although Sheila and Deirdre might beg to differ). Sarah is currently writing a memoir and will also be a guest writer in our anthology.
The Murmuring Cottage was nominated by Lynne, who tells us that the blog is just beautiful, with still life pictures similar to Country Living magazine, very peaceful and restful, with an atmosphere that’s great for getting her in the mood to write.
Alison May is a brilliant friend to the Write Romantics blog and we have really enjoyed tracking the journey on her blog from nervous NWS member to published author, winning and being shortlisted for various awards along the way… giving those of us still in the NWS something to aim for. In fact she might already have this award, too, but we’re sure she’ll make some room in her trophy cabinet! Alison is also going to feature in our anthology and we can’t wait to read her story.
J Keller Ford was a recent guest on the blog,we absolutely loved having her visit and we have enjoyed following her blog ever since. She’s got us thinking about the type of book cover we want for the anthology, which has been really influential on our plans, and has contributed to two anthologies herself, so really knows her stuff.
Rhoda Baxter, is another wonderful supporter of our blog and has helped many of the Write Romantics with advice and, especially, her knowledge of the US market. We really like Rhoda’s inheritance books slot on her blog and although we’re pretty certain she will already have been nominated, we’re including her in our top ten nonetheless. As you can already tell, we’ve been incredibly lucky that many of the bloggers and writers we have found so influential, in our first year of blogging, are also going to be involved in our anthology and Rhoda is no exception.
Vikki Thompson is about the most prolific blogger we have ever met! Vikki’s blog, The View Outside, was really influential on the Write Romantics in the early days and she taught us all about the value of tagging our posts properly and the joys of the scheduling function! She takes on A-Z challenges with admirable enthusiasm and her writing prompts and insecure writers’ group posts are definitely worth the visit.
Linda Huber is another contributor who we have been thrilled to get on-board. Just the picture on Linda’s blog, of where she lives on the banks of the beautiful Lake Constance in Switzerland makes us want to write! She’s been inspirational in her support of the anthology and we have all been downloading her debut novel, The Paradise Trees, so we are ready for the release of her forthcoming second novel The Cold Cold Sea. Her writing is every bit as evocative as the titles suggest and we can’t wait to get her anthology story in our hot little hands!
Carol asked us to include a YouTube video of our current favourite song. Getting nine romance writers to agree on a single song was not something I wanted to attempt, so I posted a request on our Facebook group, promising the first person who came back to me that they’d get their choice. So here is what Jackie chose, Ed Sheeran’s Sing, and we’ll be playing it in our flat at the RNA conference, at full volume.
So if you find yourself in the room below, and there’s some less than tuneful singing coming through the floor, you’ll know that the Write Romantics have been on the vanilla vodka again!
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