The prestigious Holt Medallion was awarded to Sleep No More in the category of Novel with Strong Romantic Elements.
Sleep No More Wins RomCon Reader’s Crown Award
Sleep No More was honored at RomCon in Denver with the Reader’s Crown Award for Mainstream Women’s Fiction. RomCon is an annual conference dedicated to romance and women’s fiction. The Reader’s Crown was also sponsored by Borders.
German Translations of Sleep No More and Seeing Red Available Now!
Best Buddies Indiana Fundraiser and Book Signing
Saturday was a very special day, one I’ll remember for years to come. Many new friends from Best Buddies Indiana joined me to help launch my latest romantic suspense, SLEEP NO MORE.
Best Buddies is a non-profit organization dedicated to creating opportunities for one-to-one friendships, integrated employment and leadership development for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. And what a wonderful organization it is!
I was reminded of the value of friendship, a thing many of us take for granted, and how a life without it can be so very desolate. This organization is particularly helpful to high school and college age people with intellectual disabilities, a time in everyone’s life that is made richer by friendships. With this kind of social and emotional support, many people with disabilities develop the necessary social skills to better able to integrate into the flow of life and the workforce.
We had a great party at Noblesville, IN Barnes & Noble, gave away some goodies, raised some money for Best Buddies and more importantly raised people’s awareness of this great organization. You see, up until recently, I didn’t even know about Best Buddies Indiana. But in writing SLEEP NO MORE I created one of my all-time favorite characters, Maggie, a young woman with Mosaic Down Syndrome. During my research, I learned much, gained a better insight, and discovered Best Buddies.
I have a couple of “small world” stories, three actually. First there was the book club I visited in early January (on a horrible, frigid day, but these ladies were hearty souls who ventured out anyway). I mentioned my upcoming signing and the tie-in with Best Buddies. Lo, and behold, one of the women there was on the parents’ advisory board and has a son who participates in Best Buddies. Now M.J. and her son Jeff are among my newfound friends. I’m going to get a photo up on my website of Jeff at the signing.
Small world story number 2. The woman on the right of this photo is Kim, she works for Best Buddies Indiana and was there the whole day. As Kim and I were chatting, we were discussing Noblesville, as I grew up here and live here, and discovered that her father was my band director when I was in junior high!Small world story number 3. Katie, on the right in this photo, also works for Best Buddies. One of my friends from waaaay back, a friend of my older brother in fact, was at the signing, saw her and said, “Hey, she took care of me while I was in the hospital a while back.” He and Katie had a conversation, and yes indeed, Katie was a nurses aid and took care of him. (And we have lots of hospitals in this area!)
How about that for one short afternoon?
Katie also shared a story with me that I will never, never forget. She said that while she was in high school, she did not have a person who she could call “friend.” For four years, she ate lunch alone and walked the halls alone. Katie is now working to make sure others with disabilities such as hers don’t have to go through their days alone. It seems such a small thing, having a friend. But you don’t realize, until you walk those halls alone day after day, what a huge difference it can make in your life.
Best Buddies and the people I’ve met through them have enriched my own life. And I’m thinking Maggie won’t be my last character with an intellectual disability.
If you’d like to know more about Best Buddies, visit www.bestbuddies.org
The First Author Blog – Welcome!
Because this is my first author blog on this site, I’ll give a bit of a rundown on how I came to be here — and how I ended up with this fabulous career as an author.
Before She was an Author
Unlike many writers, I didn’t major in English Literature (I was a science major) and I didn’t begin penning stories as soon as I learned to write. My path was much more convoluted and, yes, I’ll admit it, serendipitious. Born with a love for words, and raised as an avid reader, it seems that the idea of becoming a writer really should have crossed my mind without prompting. Alas, it did not.
It wasn’t until my younger sister, she of the avid imagination, came to me one day with a stack of track-feed (yes, it was that long ago) computer paper and admitted to “closet writing” that my adventure as a novelist began. Working with her on that manuscript I discovered that although I loved reading, I knew less than nothing about novel construction and even less than that about the publishing industry.
Becoming an Author
The most serendipitous even of all: I wrote a letter (real snail mail, mind you) to the author of one of my favorite books Outlander. Imagine my shock when I received an actual telephone call from Diana Gabaldon herself! She was amazing and kind. She pointed me in the direction of the two organizations that ended up changing my life: CompuServe’s (again, it was a while ago) Writer’s Forum and Romance Writers of America. Those two connections opened up a whole new world for me.
Published Author
Now I have eight published novels (six women’s fiction and two romantic suspense), the ninth, another romantic thriller, SLEEP NO MORE, is slated for January 2010. I’ve been honored with my very own RITA, as well as other awards that are so very precious to me. I might have gotten here without fate intervening, but it certainly gave me a big boost.
So, the lesson learned: persistence and patience, hard work and committment will someday deliver your dreams to your door. And sometimes it gets a little help along the way.