Blogging with Susan and Sedona

Once a parent, always a parent...

2008-06-16T16:22:00.003-07:00

"Mom, a tornado hit the house and we have a tree in our bedroom."
"Son, these are not words mothers want to hear--is everyone okay?"
"Yes, we're fine. Dogs are fine. Cars are fine."
Mother (letting out breath she didn't even know she was holding) "Oh, thank heavens."
And to think my biggest fear up to that moment was whether or not my perm was leaving my newly long locks. Thoughts started rocketing through my brain. My baby's in danger--oh good Lord, Susan, he's thirty. Wizard of Oz. More tornadoes? I don't care how old he is, he's my son and I want to hug him NOW. He's in Nebraska. Think, think!
"How can we help you?"
"I may need money." No kidding. Tree in bedroom. Rain. Flooding. How does one deal with weather--we don't do much of that in Arizona, but I'm sure it will take money.
"But we may not. Just wanted you to know." Very independent son.
"Sure, son. But let us know, because we'll have to juggle some things, that's all. Where are you now?"
"At the neighbors. We want to be sure everyone's okay." Can you see why he wants to be a doctor? Warmth flows through me.
"And are they?"
"So far, everyone's okay." And so on...
The next day I spent on line getting everyone I could think of to pray for the citizens of my son's tiny village. The second storm was to come in that night--exactly the same way. Prayers sent up. The second storm changed track, came in from the opposite side and thank God and all the faithful, no tornado.
The thing is this: God wants us to ask. He wants us to need him. He wants us to reach out to each other. He wants us to help each other. My friend's neice said, "Wow! An epiphany!"

Life changes

2008-06-04T15:20:00.003-07:00

Hello all, I just signed away my responsibilities for being President of my local writer's organization. We got lots done and the members were really appreciative, but it took a huge chunk out of my writing time (and don't you know it-I've had more requests from agents and editors than ever during those 18 months). I'm having such ambivalence about it. Our board got to be very cohesive and we operated like a well-oiled team and as we got to know each other, friendships blossomed. We just had a party around the pool for the last meeting where we handed over the various paraphanalia and paperwork that goes with such jobs and the enthusiasm for next year at Desert Rose Romance Writers is through the roof! So, I'm really happy about that, but will miss some of the friendly faces I saw twice a month. However, I can really get ripping on my writing so look for some new books soon...oh and if you'd like to visit Desert Rose? Here's the link:Phoenix Desert Rose RWA
Talk to you again soon,
~~Susan

Desert Dreams-the best writing conference

2008-05-19T16:09:00.005-07:00

The Desert Dreams Conference went off without a hitch. It was, I think, the best writer's conference I've ever been to. There was so much information and so many contacts at our fingertips that attendees are (like me) just getting through all that we've been given. And all of that will take time to sink in, but sink in, it will. I've learned this from past conferences. I'll be sitting at my keyboard and some jewel I've picked up at the conference will help me write just a bit more discriptively, with bit more clarity, making a love scene hotter, better, more real.

By the way, if you couldn't get our our way to sunny Arizona, we have put up a link to all the workshops that were taped. You owe it to yourself if you've ever thought about writing, to order them--essence of the business of writing. Desert Dreams Conference tapes 2008. Check out the previous blog to see who all was there and then go order the tapes you want. I guarantee you won't be disappointed. Talk to you again soon.
~~Susan

Best Writer's Conference EVER!

2008-03-10T14:09:00.002-07:00

***Permission to Forward to all Loops, Blogs, and Websites***Did you know people who attend writers' conferences increase their ability to sell their manuscripts by as much as 50%? This is because attendees have the opportunities to meet agents and editors face-to-face instead of blindly querying them. They also enter contests and attend workshops enabling them to improve their craft. With those odds, a weekend investment in the affordable (half the price of some conferences) Desert Dreams Conference from April 4 - 6, 2008 at the Crowne Plaza San Marcos Golf Resort and Hotel in Chandler, Arizona should be considered a MUST for every writer's career. But the deadline is only days away - you must register online at www.desertroserwa.org or call 866-267-2249 NO LATER THAN March 15, 2008, or you will have missed your opportunity until 2010!Just take a look at the fabulous editors and agents waiting to meet you at this year's conference:Desert Dreams Agents:JessicaFaust, Bookends, Inc.As a literary agent and cofounder ofBookEnds, LLC, Jessica Faust prides herself on working closely with her authorsto make their goals come to fruition. Her areas of expertise includehistorical, contemporary, fantasy, paranormal, and erotic romance, erotica,women's fiction, mysteries, suspense, and thrillers. In nonfiction, Jessicaspecializes in business, finance, career, parenting, psychology, women'sissues, self-help, health, sex, and general nonfiction. While open to anything,Jessica is most actively seeking unique fiction with a strong hook, andnonfiction with creative ideas and large author platforms.A veteran of publishing, Jessica began hercareer in 1994 as an acquisitions editor at Berkley Publishing, Macmillan, andWiley, where she had the unique opportunity to acquire and edit both fictionand nonfiction. Jessica takes her editing experience to the agency, where sheworks closely with her authors to create the best possible proposal submissions.MichelleGrajkowski, Three Seas LiteraryFrom the moment MichelleGrajkowski first opened her doors to the 3 Seas Literary Agency in August of2000, she has been living her dream. (What could be better than surroundingyourself with great authors and their exciting and imaginative books?)Since then, she's successfully soldinto major publishing houses including Harlequin, NAL, Berkley, Dorchester,Kensington, Avon, Pocket, Random House (both here and in the UK), Knopf,Andrews McMeel, Warner, St. Martin's and HarperCollins.Currently, she is looking forfantastic authors with a voice of their own. Michelle focuses on romance,women's fiction, Chick-Lit young adult and middle grade fiction.Bob MeCoy – now has his own Literary Agency and features manyaward-winning authors. Feel free tovisit his website.Elaine Spencer, The Knight Agency – Joined The Knight Agency inSeptember of 2005 to manage our continual onslaught of queries and submissions.She acts as the liaison between clients, publishers, and agents as ManuscriptCoordinator and an Associate Agent here at TKA. With a strong background inboth comparative literature and economics at the University of Georgia , she has experience with legalcontracts and executive management, as well as writing, editing, andpublishing. Consistently producing strong results with a high degree ofintegrity, dedication, and efficiency, Elaine is a perfect addition to the TKApowerhouse. Rachel Vater, Folio Literary Management – Representswriters of commercial and literary fiction. She is open to first-time authorsand is especially looking for beautifully written fiction with an originalconcept and unique voice. She is looking for young adult fiction dealing withcontemporary teen issues and also young adult fantasy. She handles genrefiction, but does not handle horror, westerns, poetry, screenplays, stage playsor category romance.Fornonfiction, she is currently looking for well-credentialed authors who have astrong platform and are writing in the areas of business, personal finance,career books, women’s issues, social issues, spirituality, psychology, health,pop culture and narrative nonfiction. Of special interest are books that delvebehind the scenes, reveal a forgotten piece of history or expose a new side ofsomething most people don’t know about.Desert Dreams Editors:AngelaJames, Samhain Publishing – A formerharem princess, Duchess of York andglobe-trotting superhero, I’ve lived an extensive fantasy life thanks to theworld of books. But after all that, I settled for the job of Executive Editorat Samhain Publishing.In lovewith everything involving the world of publishing and most especiallyepublishing, every day is a new adventure for me as I learn something new aboutediting, publishing and administrating (is that a word?) This job might keep mebusy but it’s never dull!Leah Hultenschmidt, Dorchester Publishing – She has beenwith Dorchester Publishing for more than seven years. After several years inPublic Relations and Promotions, she's now back to doing what she lovesmost—editing books. Leah heads the Making It line for chick lit and also workson historical, paranormal, futuristic, time-travel, and just about any otherkind of romance. In 2002 she was listed among the Who's Who of ProfessionalManagement.Amy Pierpont, Grand Central Publishing - She is a Senior Editor at GrandCentral Publishing and Editorial Director of Forever. She is a passionatereader of women's fiction, commercial literary fiction, thrillers and historicalfiction, and as a news and pop culture junkie, she's always delighted when ahealth title, media related book, or big, branded commercial lifestyle projectcrosses her desk. As Editorial Director of Forever, she looks forward toworking with the Grand Central editors to develop a program chock-full of thebest romantic suspense, erotica, and historical romance writers in the genre. Most recently she plied her editorial skills at Random House/Clarkson Potter,where she worked with bestselling garden writers Ken Druse, P. Allen Smith, andTovah Martin, and developed lavishly illustrated lifestyle books on such variedtopics as vintage style, big, beautiful green homes, stylish decorating anddelicious cocktails.Toni Plummer, Thomas Dunne Imprint, St. Martin’s Press -Toni Plummergrew up in Los Angeles County, California. She attendedthe University of Notre Dame, earning a B.A. in Philosophy. She then earned aMasters in Professional Writing from the University of Southern California. In 2004, she began working at ThomasDunne Books, a division of St. Martin's Press, in New York City. The eclecticnature of the imprint's list has allowed her to pursue a range of literary andcommercial fiction, including women's fiction, chick lit, mysteries (from coziesto hard-boiled), and romance in the vein of Barbara Taylor Bradford andNicholas Sparks. Her nonfiction interests include memoir, travel, humor,advice/relationships, and social issues. Her recent acquisitions are Exposed:Confessions of a Wedding Photographer by Claire Lewis and The Down andDirty Dish on Revenge: A Girl's Guide to Getting Back at that Lying, CheatingBastard by Eva Nagorski. The titles are self-explanatory. Also, she'sacquired The Accidental Santera by Irete Lazo, a novel about a Latina scientist whoenters the mysterious world of Santeria, the often misunderstood religionbrought to the New World by African slaves. Toni isparticularly interested in Latino authors and in books with multiculturalthemes.Joanna Raisanen,Harlequin Superromance –Johanna Raisanen has worked for Harlequin Enterprises for over ten years. She has worked on a variety of series, including Harlequin American Romance, Superromance, NEXT and Love Inspired Suspense. She loves to read, so it's lucky for her she has a job where she get to read all the time! Johanna lives in Toronto.And don't forget: Best-selling authors Sherrilyn Kenyon and Carly Phillips are sure to deliver some awe-inspiring words as our keynote speakers. Hope to see you there!--Stacey Goitia, PR Committee, and Susan Lanier-Graham, Conference Chair for the 2008 Desert Dreams Writers' Conference

Chocolate Fest and CJ Hollenbach

2008-03-03T16:58:00.003-07:00

February started with the famous Glendale, Arizona Chocolate Fest! Imagine this: beautiful people; (CJ Hollenbach-blond, pirate, cover model-would make equally good cowboy, firefighter, martial arts master...), tanalizing romance authors (how do they know that stuff?), vendors of everything chocolate with the unchallenged king being Mr. Cerrata of Cerrata's Chocolates, incredibly talented entertainment, wonderful wine tastings, jewels and crafts of much variety, and of course the attendees--readers, chocolate eaters, kids and pets, moms and dads and this year Super Bowl fans--well anyone you could imagine really. We sold many books, saw lots of our favorite fans and just generally had a ball. Weather was glorious--warm sun and cool breezes. Be sure to mark down the first weekend in February every year for the amazing Chocolate Fest. See you there!

Hope your holidays were wonderful

2008-01-28T15:45:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,
Okay, so we need to revise and call this a periodic blog, not a daily blog and I need to make the posts shorter, so that I'm more likely to blog more often. Just wanted to take a minute before tax season hits and after the holidays to say I hope you all had seriously great holidays. Ours was very nice. We had dinner with friends we've known for nearly twenty years and everyone made it into town and back out again without incident. The weather was glorious. Since then? Rain, rain and more rain. We are going to have that glorious spring that the earlier rains promised and now will come for sure. I'll take and share a picture with you soon. Even as I speak er blog, the mountaintops are socked in with clouds. There was this serious rainbow three days ago. The colors were nearly neon as the sun slanted through near sunset to our place where it was just pouring. Wow!

We got to ride Saturday and the horses were just high on life, they wanted to see (and smell) everything and talk to everyone. Their feet barely touched the ground--made for a very interesting ride. Me to husband, "Watch out for that hole." Husband, "What hole?" Me, "Never mind, it's way back there now."

I remember a couple of years after we moved here and friends gave us a marvel of a horse named Star. My son claimed her, so we three were out riding. I suggested we stay on hard pack road, but my husband is an adventurer. He and his horse danced their way over to the arroya (his horse doesn't know how to walk) and ours walked and then SUNK TO THEIR CHESTS. Their feet were literally underground. They started struggling. So what do I order them both to do? STAND. Now, you could see by their faces that they thought that was pretty dumb, but being really nice horses, they stayed quiet while son Martin and I got off. Then we stood back and said, "Giddup." They obligingly floundered like hogs in a wallow until they could get a grip and got up. We very carefully walked them to the stream bed where there were large rocks assuring us there were no sinking spots and got back on, took deep breaths and nearly laughed until we cried. So, folks, mind your footing, make sure you're on solid ground, and go forward for a great year. See you next time. (I know there's a book in there somewhere).

Tempe Arts Fest and Borders signing

2007-12-03T13:45:00.000-07:00

In the little neighboring city of Tempe, we have an arts and crafts festival twice a year. Big talent, small prices=incredible Christmas presents. Lucky us! Beside books and authors at Borders, there are jewels, crafts, unusual furnishings and art...the list goes on and on. As you all probably know, Arizona is dry. Majorly dry. In fact, we hadn't even had a smidgeon of rain for like 103 days or something. But naturally, Saturday, it poured! It came down in sheets with gusty winds blowing every which way. The Borders store who sponsered the signing, had pity and took us inside before we and our wares blew away. So the crowd was interesting. The sun would be out and the usual sort of steady trickle came in, folks stopping to browse our books, ask pertinent questions. Suddenly, everything darkened and rain just gushed out of the sky and a bewildered wet group of twenty or so appeared inside. Apparently, they hadn'd a clue how they'd gotten there, or where they were, much less why a group of ladies were staring at them and babbling about their latest books. However, folks being what they are in Arizona, for the most part, they smiled, wiped off their hands and picked up our books. We call these "reluctant readers". But they bought. By darn, they bought. Bless their hearts. And Sunday? Bright azure skies, a few fluffy white clouds, everyone just happy to be alive on such a glorious day. And they bought! Interested readers buying for themselves and for Christmas presents. What other profession can you sit and visit all day with folks and your friends and fellow writers and call it work? La, la, la!

Did I mention I'm the President?

2007-11-29T12:53:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not "tetched in the haid" as my native Hoosiers might say. I am the President of my local chapter of Romance Writers of America--known as Desert Rose. let me explain. Some of the members and I were having dinner with a warm and wonderful visiting literary agent last night, when a friend to my left asked, "Why did you become president, knowing that it would take time from your writing?" The answer came automatically, "I'm giving back just a small part of what's been given to me." This chapter of local authors are the folks who taught me how to go about writing and then publishing and then marketing my novels. I could never have done it without them. And when life get's a rough spot? It's these same folks who help me through. Then, I looked around the table and spotted a board member, our secretary, and as she beamed across the table I realized how much more I know her and appreciate her than I did a year ago, when I barely recognized her name. The same is true of every member of my board. I thought back to our last board meeting where all the members concurred that we don't want the closeness to end. We've learned each others' strengths and know just when to step in to help each other. We are such an effective team now that it warms my heart and makes me smile. Could I do this position alone? Not on my life. Have I gotten much more out of it than I've given? Yes. Now I need to get back to work and try to even up that balance again. The moral of this story? When someone asks you to step up for something you strongly believe in? Don't count the cost. Just do it. It will make you smile...again and again.

And another thing...or muttering from the kitchen

2007-11-26T12:00:00.000-07:00

Don't read this if you can't boil an egg! I have always made my deviled eggs with the ease of the ignorant. I boiled them, peeled them, and mashed the yolks with mayonaisse, mustard and various seasonings (based on my mood). This year, I decided my deviled eggs should be more perfect. Why? Because Martha Stewart said she could do a PERFECT boiled egg. So, I thought, what the heck? Why not give it a try. How can boiling an egg go wrong? I won't go into the gory details, but here are some of my colorful comments: "This sure as heck takes longer than my way." "Da*@ things won't peel." "Out of 24 eggs, Martha dear, I have may a dozen that I can use." "Da*@ things won't peel." "Fri&&in' eggs." "Da*@ things won't peel."Maybe it's the eggs--I'm going back to my way." "I'll be darned, it was the method. These eggs are peeling perfectly." And Martha? If you're reading this? I really, really tried, so maybe you could put a little caveat? Don't do this for deviled eggs?

Good intentions

2007-11-18T18:26:00.000-07:00

So obviously, this won't be a daily blog. No, darn it, it will be! I just need to establish a routine of blogging, set a time, do it. Trouble is, life happens. Stuff. Stuff you can't get around or ignore and sometimes it takes a huge chunk out of your life. Like someone in the family passing away. No matter what, it takes a huge chunk out of your life. No way around it. And it should. We need time for grief and closure. And then there's illness--often following on the heels of grief. Unfortunately, we've had both and so I haven't been able to keep my committment. But, I'm Scots and Cherokee and we're nothing, if not persistent, so I'll talk to you tomorrow. Now, I think I'll go pet my dog and pray for those who've gone on before us.

Writer's life

2007-11-07T14:12:00.000-07:00

I just spoke with a friend, a strong capable woman. She teaches aerobic classes, is the VP of our chapter of romance writers and is in all ways a woman to be reckoned with. She says the hardest thing she does is to find uninterrupted writing time (duh, think this applies to me, who just called and interrupted her?) But, no, I was calling her to arrange our ride to the board meeting tonight so it was a "had to be" call. So, I was thinking I was being a wienie 'cause I hadn't been able to find time in the last two days to write. Her assurances that this is a common affliction among writers helped. Not like I didn't know it, but at this moment in time, I didn't KNOW it. And she made me feel better about it. This is why we belong to writer's groups and this is why we support each other. Sometimes we just need to be able to say it. Ya know?

Old West Booksigning Nov 2nd and 3rd

2007-11-04T16:26:00.000-07:00

Saturday and Sunday were glorious here in the Superstition Mountains in Arizona and I spent them at the Superstition Mountain Museum, meeting and greeting some of you and signing books. The museum features all of my titles because TimeRider and TimeQuest and Best Man for the Job are set in the Superstitions. The signing went wonderfully well and I met folks from all over the world, but that's pretty usual for the "snowbird" population has flown in to bask in our sunny weather. Discussions ranged from spiritual vortexes to the shoot out at the OK corral. We had a live western guitarist that knew all the old western songs plus many of the new ones as well as his own Arizona centered compositions. And when one fellow's hat came off during a dance with a pretty cowgirl, Ted made a song up on the spot and it was really GOOD! The breezes were cool, the sun was warm, the company fabulous and sales went really well. So good to meet you, Pam, Tootsie, Lavender and girls, Diane and all... Good to see old friends, Kathy, Jack and Elizabeth, Jack San Felice, Don and Mary, Hank, Ron, Amy and all. Mark your calendars for the first weekend in November for The Author's and Artist's Gathering in Apache Junction, Arizona and come join the fun.

Hello everyone

2007-10-31T14:46:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog. My friend, Linda, told me I just had to have one. Why? 'Cause everyone's got them. So you know what my dear mother would say, (was she still among us) "And if everyone else jumps off a cliff, would you do that too? A
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Actually NOT. I'm a pretty independent sort. But, I do love to talk with friends, family and fans and right now, a blog seems like the best way to do just that. I'll be writing to you on a daily basis, barring accidents and the creek don't rise, oh, please forgive me, I'm working on my third time-travel and so am in 1880's Arizona...Did I mention that authors live in their own little world? So, in the days to come, I'll share little bits, here and there and hope you'll enjoy reading them.
My Best to You All,
~~Susan