A New Look for Winter Tales, Our #charity #anthology

It’s hard to believe, but November is almost upon us, and winter is just around the corner. Shops are already filling up with Christmas goodies, and the dark nights are drawing in.

Social media has been full of promotional posts for, and news of, forthcoming or newly-released Christmas books. Some might say (and some have) that it’s far too early for all that, but the truth is, whatever your opinion, festive books are on sale and they’re proving to be very popular.

In a world that can sometimes seem harsh and uncaring, it can be a relief and a joy to settle down with a story set at the time of year when peace and goodwill to all men reign supreme. There’s something very cosy and comforting about Christmas books, and this year, the Write Romantics have a bumper crop on offer. You’ll be hearing more about that in future posts.

But first and foremost, the important news is that, as you can see by the picture above, we have given our anthology, Winter Tales, a fresh look, and we love the gorgeous new cover with the festive robin and the warm, cheerful colours. We released Winter Tales back in November 2014, gathering together stories from generous writing friends, who happily contributed their seasonal tales in aid of two great causes.

Winter Tales was put together for the benefit of The Cystic Fibrosis Trust and The Teenage Cancer Trust – two charities very close to our hearts. At the time, we were ten writers with only one publishing deal between us, and we knew we needed help from our friends! Luckily for us, the writing community is a big, helpful and friendly one, and before long we had contributions from plenty of lovely authors. We raised lots of money for our chosen charities, and we managed to garner some good reviews for the book.

It’s now three years on (I know! Unbelievable!) and, with it being that time of year again, we’ve decided to give Winter Tales a new look and try our best to raise more money for the charities. The new cover has proved very popular, and we had a brilliant weekend of sales, earning our anthology a bestseller flag on Amazon for the very first time. But we need to keep this going, so, in the spirit of Christmas, we’re just giving anyone who hasn’t bought the book a gentle nudge.  Winter Tales is just 99p at the moment, and here’s a list of all the stories you can find inside.

Not Just Another Winter’s Tale by Jessica Redland

Reserved by Rhoda Baxter

Seasonal Encounters of the Cafe Kind by Zanna Mackenzie

In All the Wrong Places by Jo Bartlett

Winter Melody by Deirdre Palmer

The Handsome Stranger by Alison May

Loving Mr Perfect by Holly Martin

The Other Side of Christmas by Sharon Booth

The Art of Giving by Sarah Painter

All I Want for Christmas by Jackie Ladbury

The Bookshop of Dreams by Helen Phifer

Muriel’s Christmas Surprise by Jennifer Bohnet

Wherever I’ll Be by Deirdre Palmer

Christmas in July by Helen J Rolfe

A Pistol for Propriety by Alys West

A Tooth for a Tooth by Terri Nixon

It’s a Wonderful Life by Annie Lyons

Something Blue by Linda Huber

Ghosts of Christmas by Sarah Lewis

Meet Me at Midnight by Rachael Thomas

Into My Loving Arms by Lynne Pardoe

An Early Christmas Present by Samantha Tonge

Butterfly Nights by Deirdre Palmer

So, you see, we have some really fabulous authors in there and some fantastic stories for your reading pleasure. We hope you’ll take a chance on this anthology and, if you enjoy it, why not leave a review, or spread the word to friends and family so that we can raise as much money as possible to help everyone affected by cystic fibrosis and cancer, who need and deserve our help. You can buy Winter Tales here.

Thank you! And Merry Christmas. xx

Launch Day Has Arrived!!!! Crack Open the Champers!

It’s here! The day we’ve been talking about since early spring has finally arrived and we are beyond excited. For The Write Romantics, today is the day when our dreams come true because it’s the day we can all stand proudly and declare: “I’m a published writer!” Is it a bit sad to admit that I really will be doing that?!

Wow!

For most of us, this has been a dream spanning a decade or several. Some of the group have had success over the last couple of years and others will see their debut novels launched in 2015 but, wherever we are in our journeys, today is an exceedingly proud day for us all.

The Write Romantics and guests are absolutely thrilled to present to you: Winter Tales – Stories to Warm Your Heart. And they really will warm your heart because, not only are the stories all uplifting, but all proceeds go to charity. Cystic Fibrosis Trust and Teenage Cancer Trust are charities close to our heart and we’ve felt quite touched and privileged that eleven other writers have spared their time and talent to share a short story alongside those penned by The WRs. We can’t thank you all enough for your generosity and all the promotional work you’ve done/will do for this book in order to raise as many funds as we can for the two worthy causes. For the full listing on who has joined us, please click here.

The e-Book is available right now on Amazon at a price of just over 10p per story. Where else can you claim such an amazing bargain? The weather’s looking pretty grim this weekend so we suggest you curl up on the sofa with your Kindle, a mug of hot chocolate, and a slice (or three) of cake and read, read, read. But if you can bear to wait a little longer, the paperback will be available from 22^nd November although we hope it will appear for pre-order before then (watch this space!)

This afternoon, we partied online. This post was meant to be another reminder of it but, for some obscure reason, it didn’t post so I’m tweaking and re-posting! Thank you to everyone who joined in. If you want to see what we discussed, feel free to check it out but, please note, we’ve all staggered home with our bellies full of cake and cocktails so we won’t be able to participate in any more banter.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us in this journey and thank you in advance to everyone who is going to download or buy (or both) a copy of Winter Tales. You really can make a difference to the lives of children with Cystic Fibrosis like Write Romantic Alys’s three-year-old nephew, Thomas, and those who are battling against cancer like Stephen Sutton whose story inspired us to pick Teenage Cancer Trust as our second charity.

Enjoy the read, thanks for your support, and let us know what you think of the stories. Because if you love them, we may do a summer one too … but perhaps in 2016 as this has been a long journey so far!

Jessica xx

Exciting Anthology News – Line Up Confirmed!

It’s the 1st October; the start of the final quarter of the year. Where’s the rest of the year gone? Absolutely no idea.

The Write Romantics are incredibly busy at the moment. As well as welcoming new member, Sharon, celebrating the launch of Rachael’s debut novel, and the Super September publishing-deal news for Harriet and me, we’re gearing up to the launch of our very own charity anthology, ‘Winter Tales – Stories to Warm Your Heart’. Even the sound of the title makes me want to curl up on a large armchair by a roaring fire and read, read, read. And eat chocolate. And probably drink wine too but let’s not go there!

Without further ado, we’re thrilled to confirm the final guest list and the running order of stories in our anthology. The Write Romantics have seen this already (hot out of the hat last night because that was the only fair way to do it) but this will be the first time our guests have seen the full list. We’re delighted to have a mix of lengths, genres and settings for our stories. The one thing they all have in common is the winter-setting and the uplifting feel.

1. Jessica Redland – Not Just Another Winter’s Tale
2. Rhoda Baxter – Reserved
3. Zanna Mackenzie – Seasonal Encounters of the Cafe Kind
4. Jay Bartlett – In All The Wrong Places
5. Harriet James – Winter Melody
6. Alison May – The Handsome Stranger
7. Holly Martin – Loving Mr Perfect
8. Kerry Fisher – 1st & 2nd chapter of The Divorce Domino
9. Sharon Booth – The Other Side of Christmas
10. Sarah Painter – The Art of Giving
11. Jackie Ladbury – All I Want for Christmas
12. Helen Phifer – The Bookshop of Dreams
13. Jennifer Bohnet – Muriel’s Christmas Surprise
14. Harriet James – Wherever I’ll Be
15. Helen J Rolfe – Christmas in July
16. Alys West – A Pistol For Propriety
17. Terri Nixon – A Tooth for a Tooth
18. Annie Lyons – It’s a Wonderful Life
19. Linda Huber – Something Blue
20. Sarah Lewis – Ghosts of Christmas
21. Rachael Thomas – Meet Me At Midnight
22. Lynne Pardoe – Into My Loving Arms
23. Samantha Tonge – An Early Christmas Present
24. Harriet James – Butterfly Nights

We’ve been proofreading, writing the blurb, opening a bank account, liaising with the charities (Teenage Cancer Trust and Cystic Fibrosis Trust), writing our dedications, organising an introduction from Dr Carol Cooper … the list goes on! Our typesetter (who also happens to be my husband) is currently setting the pages and we’ve had a peek this evening of the first draft of the cover which is very exciting. We hope to do a full reveal within the next week or so.

Please keep checking back for more news, both about our anthology and about another very exciting development within The Write Romantics.

Bye for now.

Jessica xxx

Fab Friday announcement – we have a winner!

As regular readers of the blog will know, November will see the release date of The Write Romantics and Friends’ anthology in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust and the Cystic Fibrosis Trust.  If you haven’t already heard about this exciting project, you can read all about it on our anthology page.

We’ve been running a competition to come up with a title for the anthology and we were delighted to receive over thirty entries.  There were some really creative names amongst the suggestions and they had us all thinking about cosying up in front of a roaring log fire – yes, even in August!

Our eventual winner was a title of elegant simplicity with a link to the literary king of them all, William Shakespeare.  After much deliberation, and a gentle debate over whether to include an apostrophe or not, we had our title and tagline:

“Winter Tales” – stories to warm your heart

The winner of the competition was the lovely Liz Berry from Crawley in West Sussex, pictured here with a backdrop more like to bring summer to mind, and a £20 Amazon voucher is winging its way to her as we speak.

Please do support the anthology if you can.  It will be available as an e-book and in paperback from November and very soon we will be having our next big announcement – The Cover Reveal!

Thanks again to everyone who took part and who has supported us so far.  You’re all winners in our eyes.