Traditionally Publish Through Harlequin is still a viable way to have a romance writing career. The publishing company has its guidelines up on a separate website for anyone who wishes to read through it. There is lots of great information. Harlequin is looking for specific stories for May 2024. See below for more information.
Editor
Spring is Sprung With Spring Break and St Patricks Day
Spring is Sprung With Spring Break and St Patrick’s Day.
Greener on This Side: Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in the US Every March 17th, the US transforms into an emerald isle for a day! St. Patrick’s Day, a celebration of Irish heritage and culture, is a bigger deal here than you might think. Sure, it’s not an official federal holiday (except in a few places like Savannah, Georgia), but that doesn’t stop the festivities. Here’s what makes St. Patrick’s Day special in the United States:
Happy Valentines Day to All Romance Writers and Readers
We hope you will find something wonderful to read and enjoy. Even though Valentine’s Day is on a Wednesday this year there is no reason why you cannot take the day off, plan something special with a loved one or, if you do not have someone special right now, plan a special day all for yourself. There is nothing like a bit of chocolate, your favorite beverage, and a cozy place to read a good story. Visit our online shop to grab one of our romance anthologies, or two, or three! We already have plans for several more this coming year. Join our own Newsletter to keep up with our happenings.
Welcome FCRW Board Members for 2024
Welcome FCRW Board Members for 2024. The personnel may be about the same but there has been a shuffling of seats for the First Coast Romance Writers organization for this new year. We wanted to give a warm welcome and shout-out for our new President – Curtis Bennett.
President: Curtis Bennett
president@firstcoastromancewriters.com
Curtis began his interest in reading as a child, thanks to his mother who read to him, and in 7th grade he was honored by his school as the recipient of the Dolfinger-McMahon Book Award. His first novel was published in 2012. Between 2011 and 2013, while attending college full-time for two of those years, he penned 16 novels of various genres, while graduating with honors from the University of North Florida. To date, he has penned 30 thirty full-length books.
Winter Holidays Updates News and Reviews
Winter Holidays are upon us and here are some updates, news and reviews for the remainder of the coming year. Our Director of Programming has been very busy and has already lined up the next six month worth of Writers Workshop Speakers. The NERFA 2024 will be open to submissions in March 2024. We hope … Read more
How Long Should Your Story Be?
How Long Should Your Story Be?
While I am updating our Writer’s Resources Word Glossary on our Member’s Only website (only available to our members.) I came across the definition for “Word Count”. Looking on the internet for the typical word count for books by genre is helpful to know when writing your story. These are considered averages and if you want to know how many pages these word counts will produce for paperbacks I always rely on the Kindle Publishing Cpver Calculator: https://kdp.amazon.com/cover-calculator
August WrapUp and Coming Soon
August Wrap-Up and another great workshop will be coming soon for our members and guests. In August we had KG Fletcher presenting some great information about how music affects us all and can help us write better prose. Most authors create different playlists for each novel to help them get into the headspace for those characters and scenes they will be writing. She also discussed some of the laws we have to be aware of when wanting to use song titles and/or lyrics in our books and other types of writing. There are also specific rules about using music with your book trailers and social media posts. Of course, check with a lawyer for specific information.
July Speaker Wrap-Up and Member News
July Speaker Wrap-Up and Member News – This month’s speaker was Pamela Taylor from Texas who gave us two workshops. One about DIY editing and the other was a great group exercise called Authenticity vs. Creativity in Contemporary and Historical Settings. The first training session went over some of the more common problem areas that writers have and should be award of to keep a look out for when they do their own editing. Giving a ‘clean’ manuscript over to a professional editor will save her/him time and you money.
The second workshop was an interactive class session where Pamela gave us a grid on various genres and we free-associated what we thought was important for writers in those storylines. Great exercise and very helpful for both newbies and those who have published a few stories already.
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