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“The Call”
I've wanted to be a published author since I was nine-years-old. However, although I've always written, it was only in February 2009 that I started to work seriously toward publication in romance. If you're an aspiring writer, "The Call," and realizing the dream of...
Remembering a life
I lost a special member of my family this week, and my last living link with a world that’s now vanished. I blogged about Cousin Mary in August 2014 at the centenary of the start of the First World War. Born in May 1910, Mary didn't remember the start of that...
Canadian repatriation: Month 3
I write about small towns. Both my parents came from small towns, and I spent much of my childhood visiting family and friends in small communities. Since August, though, I've lived in a small town. It's a place where my roots run deep but, like every other aspect of...
What makes a reader?
I've unpacked many boxes of books in the last two months.Books I brought back in my suitcase from the Romance Writers of America (RWA)® national conference. Books I shipped in cartons when I moved from the UK to Canada. And books in storage for fifteen years when I...
The more things change…
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that my family and I have experienced some big changes recently. From a new country to a new house, from a new brand of washing powder to new shoe and clothing sizes, in the past two months almost every aspect of daily...
From this day forward
I attended a family wedding last week. As a romance writer, I find weddings particularly meaningful. After all, the happy ending I give my fictional characters is either a wedding, or the promise that the hero and heroine will work to build a life together.This...
Canadian repatriation: Month 1
It's been almost a month since we left the UK for Canada. A time of change and excitement, but puzzlement too as we adjust to a place which is, yet isn't familiar.It's bigAlthough Canada is a vast country in terms of geography, it's also big in other ways. From car...
My Romance Writers of America (RWA)® conference 2015, from A to Z
As some of you know, I was in New York City last week for the 35th RWA® conference. This annual event is the biggest gathering of romance writers in the world. As a first-time attendee and 2015 Golden Heart® finalist, it was an exciting, overwhelming and...
Moving away and moving toward
Migration has been a recurring theme in my life and family history.My mother's ancestors left Ireland in the nineteenth century to seek a better life in what was then the frontier of Canada's Ottawa Valley.Her lone Scottish ancestor, my great-great grandfather, left a...
Photo by Robin Spencer, Spencer Studio