(This post first appeared on the Romance Writer’s Organisation of South Africa blog) 2020 has been the year of the parties that weren’t. Weddings canceled. Theatre shows. Dream trips. Family reunions. But there’s one show that is going on, and it will, as usual, bring all the feels: the love, the excitement, the joy, the camaraderie, all the good stuff…
Tag: writing
How to create better stories in three simple steps
Taking a well-known story and ‘reverse engineering’ it helps you to understand key elements of a solid plot.
Love and Launches
Wow. What a week I had last week. It’s taken me a while to pause and reflect on it. First I had the pleasure of making a trip down to the Cape Talk Studio for an interview with John Maytham. To say I was nervous is the understatement of the year. My mouth was dry like the Sahara desert and…
Book Review – Surfing With Sartre
Surfing with Sartre by Aaron James Did you know that one of the first casualties of climate change might be surfing as we know it? Desert Point could be the first to go. Even at current sea levels it only works on a low tide. Many other breaks could follow as rising oceans swamp reefs. What greater cataclysm could befall…
May’s Author 18 Feature – Joanne Serling
The debut novelist I am featuring for the month of May is Joanne Serling. Joanne’s book Good Neighbours is Literary Fiction and was published by Twelve. (Twelve is part of the Hachette Book Group, who also publish, among others, David Baldacci, Jeffrey Deaver, Malcom Gladwell and Michael Connelly.) BLURB “Joanne Serling’s ice-pick of a debut novel, Good Neighbors, centers of…
March Authors 18 Feature: “Eight years is a long time to wait . . . He’s taking it all back. His honor, his freedom, and the woman he loves.”
For our March debut author feature, we are in conversation with Sharon Wray about her writing process and her romantic suspense novel, the first of her Deadly Force series, called Every Deep Desire: Rafe Montfort was a decorated Green Beret, the best of the best, until a disastrous mission and an unforgivable betrayal destroyed his life. Now, this deadly soldier…
April’s Author 18 Feature: “One of 19 Debut you novels …. you definitely won’t want to miss.”
A Conversation with Jennifer Haupt, Author of In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills Jennifer Haupt’s moving debut novel, In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills, is a multi-cultural story deftly weaves together the journeys of three women from vastly diverse backgrounds searching for personal peace in post-genocide Rwanda. At the heart of this novel that Bustle.com named as one of…
February’s Author 18 Feature: Amanda Stauffer, Match Made In Manhattan
Amanda Stauffer’s gorgeous voice had me by about line three of the interview I received from our Author 18 collective. She is fresh and funny and I can’t wait to read Match Made In Manhattan. Amanda’s book is Women’s Fiction, and is published by Skyhorse Publishing. It hit the shelves late January which means I am a bit tardy with…
January’s Author 18 feature – Anna Quinn: The Night Child
The first featured debut author of 2018 is Anna Quinn. This previous post tells you all about the Author 18 initiative. Anna’s book, The Night Child, was released this week by Blackstone Publishing. The genre here is Psychological Literary Fiction. The Night Child is the story of Nora Brown, a young mother and high-school English teacher, whose unremembered childhood trauma…
Author 18 – Paying It Forward
I belong to a Facebook group called Author 18. (Made up of traditionally published debut novelists of 2018) I used to belong to 17 Scribes (when I thought my book was coming out last year hahaha) I was bumped to 2018 after some editorial delays (but rather a polished book than a slipshod, one, right?) And here we are with…
Melissa A Volker 