Happy Thanksgiving!

And in other news, Erotic Exploits is now available for the Nook. If you have a Nook, and are willing to download the free sample, please let me know if the formatting looks all right or is terrible. The preview function does not seem to be working for me.

GreenFlea Market in Manhattan

Two friends and I made the trip up to New York City last weekend, for the GreenFlea Market at 77th and Columbus. The setting:

Where furs go to Live Again. Or be Unalive Again? Zombie furs?

I declined to purchase this little fellow. Yes, you are intended to wear him.

Yarn!!! I don't even knit but I was tempted by the bright colors and the oh-so-soft textures. I have friends who knit....

These chandeliers were gorgeous in the autumn sunlight. One of my friends said she'd bought loose parts there before, to make ornaments.

More shinies. I saw much jewelry I liked but it was almost all vintage, and I invariably liked the most expensive ones.

Oh-kay. It's certainly an interesting painting.

The farmers' market moved across the street. Orange cauliflower!

By the time we left, the NYC Marathon was finishing up and the sidewalks were jammed. On the way back downtown for Korean food, we saw a lot of runners wrapped in thermal blankets and walking slowly--or limping--through the subway.

Linkgasm of Fun

...sounds naughty, doesn't it?

It's been a while since I posted a linkgasm, and in keeping with my recent week of vacation, here are some fun websites.

Paula's Art and Illustration includes links to a large number of Flickr groups for vintage photos and illustrations.

Old Time Candy from the 1950s on. I haven't yet ordered anything from them, but I have been tempted. It could be research.

Radio Guy. Just go look at all his pictures of cool vintage scientific equipment and masks and automobiles and, yes, radios.

Cool Tools. A blog, about exactly what it says.

Accents and Dialects of the UK has sound recordings of various United Kingdom dialects, some recent and some older.

My New Socks!

A friend knitted me these socks. I am so excited. For many months, it was only one sock (she has two small children, and I was impressed she even finished one of them). Then I mentioned my sock again, and she finished the other one. Aren't they beautiful?

The socks are relevant because I plan to wear them while sitting at home writing. I think they will make me an absolutely brilliant writer.

Also, I have already discovered they are excellent to wear while reading. I never have to think about my toes growing cold while I'm busy turning pages.

In other good news, there's a lovely review of The Duke and The Pirate Queen at Culinary Carnivale this week.

I received my copies of The Duke and The Pirate Queen on Thursday. I will try to take some amusing photographs of them.

Author Headshots

Behold! I have headshots! Well, really, head-and-torso-shots.

Tell me in comments which one you like best, and why. Thanks!






All photos by Kyle Cassidy.

Author Photo Shoot

Since I'm getting my website redone, I knew I had to have an author photo. I've been resisting this for a really long time, since I have chubby chipmunk cheeks and dimples and would much prefer to be dramatic, angular, and perhaps tubercularly pale in the fashion of a Romantic. Also, I tend to have frozen grins.

However, needs must, and I did know a photographer in Philadelphia where I live. Kyle Cassidy has a wide range of work.

We arranged to do the shoot on Friday night. I wanted an outdoor, urban setting because that's where I live and it would feel weird to do something sylvan. The night part was bonus coolness; we did evening because I had to work during the day, and cloud cover on Friday was such that shooting before dark wouldn't have been any advantage.

Kyle brought his assistant, Addie, who helped with the lighting and also providing me with some entertainment. We started off at a street corner near my apartment. I leaned on a stone staircase rail and tried to look authorly. Kyle told me the best pictures of people were when they weren't aware of being photographed, so I had to try and forget he was rapidly snapping pictures while I stared directly into the lens' red eye. Occasionally he would fire off a "look at me" or a "look into the distance" or "now I'm waiting for that car to go out of shot."

It helped a lot to know and trust the photographer, but I still felt a bit awkward at times. I didn't know what to do with my hands, and I didn't want the cheesy glamour-shot chin on fist even though I sometimes do that naturally. Addie noticed the large ring I was wearing and we tried to get that into a few shots. We tried different facial expressions: "laugh!" "you know a secret!" "Think of kittens...you hate kittens?"

Kyle showed me several of the shots, but eventually I had seen enough; if I kept looking, I was afraid I would freeze up.

Then we trekked to a nearby alley. I was getting cold by this point so switched from my jacket to my wool coat. Per instructions, I'd brought two jackets and a couple of scarves to vary the look. Also my hat, since I planned to be walking home late in the cold. For the alley shots, I wore my coat and the second scarf. I was able to shove my hands into my coat pockets (mainly because I was cold) but I think that helped me feel more relaxed. You can't see my hands in the photos, but I'm wearing red gloves, nice and warm. I became a bit mesmerized by the camera lens as the camera went click click click.

We probably had enough shots by then, but on our way to our final destination, The Pen and Pencil Club, I spotted a neat bit of ironwork and we paused there for a few more shots. This time I was wearing my hat, which makes me look like a cheery Dutch newsboy, and I didn't mind; clearly, I was getting used to the process. And having seen some of the results, I'm pretty pleased.

If you're wondering where the pictures are, I'll to post some tomorrow, so you can vote for your favorite.

Fascinating Faces

I adore looking at old photographs, particularly photographs of people.

I found this one on the web. It's of actress Marjorie Day. There's not a lot of information about her out there that I was able to find on a cursory search. But for my purposes, that doesn't really matter.

I feel like I know her from the photo, in a different way than knowing facts, in a kind of abstract way. It's a casual photograph, not overly posed, or so it seems to me. I feel like I have a glimpse of her personality from it.

I can't stop looking at her expression, at her stance. She's somebody. You can see it. She will probably show up in my fiction one day.

This Bassano photo in the National Portrait Gallery seems like it's of a different person.

How To Rest Your Writer Brain

After I learned the novel I'd been working on had been cancelled, I went with friends to Longwood Gardens and spent a gorgeous, idyllic afternoon and evening there.

WWI Wheels

French soldiers with a bicycle.


A bicycle ambulance.


Belgian soldiers on motorcycles.

Contemporary Historical Resources Linkgasm

Here are a few links I've found useful in my historical research. These are all collections/archives of contemporary materials. Contemporary to historical periods, I mean.

Old Magazine Articles, edited by Matt Jacobsen. "OldMagazineArticles.com is a Los Angeles-based website; privately owned and operated, it is the effort of one old magazine enthusiast in particular who believes deeply that today's readers of history can learn a good deal from the old periodicals. It is a primary source website and is designed to serve as a reference for students, educators, authors, researchers, dabblers, dilettantes, hacks and the merely curious."

The Home Economics Archive at Cornell University contains full-text articles and books from 1800-1999.

The Life Magazine photo archive, covering from the 1860s through the 1970s.

The Early 1900s in Color. This was a blog post at Citynoise.org that features a collection of color photographs from around the world.

RWA Conference 2010 Report, Part Two

The cover of The Moonlight Mistress is featured on Naked Romance this week, with some of my thoughts on it as well.

And now back to my RWA 2010 report!

Friday was my busiest day. I attended the awards lunch and cheered for the Librarian of the Year Jennifer Lohmann and for the Veritas Award recipient, Gwenda Bond. I then spent some quality time in the bar with Gwenda; her husband, writer Christopher Rowe; and YA author Diana Peterfreund. We talked genre and book covers and markets. It was nice to be back in the science fiction/fantasy world for a little while; I'm more at home there than in romance, because I've "lived" there longer.

In late afternoon, I attended a reception for Harlequin's Single Title authors and finally got to meet one of the Mira staff who'd been exceedingly helpful to me for a long time. I also met Susan Anderson briefly, as well as Courtney Milan (it took me a little while to realize we'd never met in person, only online!) and Kathryn Smith, and got to see Victoria Dahl for the first time at the conference. And a bunch of other people as well.

I then returned to my room to dress for that evening's big bash, the Harlequin Party at the Waldorf Astoria. On the right you will see the signature cocktail of the evening, the "Harleqin Heartbreaker," or rather what's left of one!

The space this year was much smaller than usual, but the dancing was just as enthusiastic; they've had the same DJ for all three years I've been attending, and he really knows how to get people out ("It's Raining Men," for example, is popular for more than one reason). I danced, took photos, and ate pretty sugary things including ice cream lollipops and caramel apple and lemon ice. Below is a section of the pretty, pretty chocolate log, decorated with candy leaves and insects.

All parties must eventually end, and a group of us left after midnight, trudging out behind a group including Nora Roberts. For the record, we did not steal their cab. They had a limo waiting.

Back in my room, I realized belatedly that I needed to take off my eye makeup again (it was different from what I'd worn earlier in the day). But I was good and did that. Then I slept. Packing could wait until the morning.

I was really glad to get home on Saturday night. I spent all of Sunday lolling about reading and napping. I'll be ready for next year...in about eleven months or so.

RWA 2010 Report, Part One

At last, my report on the 2010 Romance Writers of America Annual Conference! Scroll down or click the "RWA" tag for more posts and lots of photos. That picture on the left is one of the pretty floor mosaics at the Orlando Airport.

I arrived Wednesday afternoon. I unfortunately had woken up way too early so was a bit punchy that whole day. My travel, though, was fine; the plane was about an hour late leaving, yet arrived close to the original arrival time. Perhaps there was a TARDIS involved? The van I took from the airport to the Dolphin Hotel was completely full of RWA Conference attendees, with the exception of one male business traveler who was going to the Hilton. We almost talked him into going to the conference with us instead.

I spent the rest of Wednesday with the mundanities of checking in, registering, unpacking, etc. before the Literacy Autographing, which is a fun but exhausting event. I then ventured out to the Blogger Bar Bash and met...lots and lots of cool people. I have a pile of business cards. Let's see, there was Anime June of Gossamer Obsessions, and KristieJ of Ramblings on Romance, and Librarian of the Year Jennifer Lohmann, and Magdalen B of Promantica, and of course host Wendy the Super Librarian. And many more. I was so tired I wasn't very entertaining, though. Instead of going on to the Romance Divas Karaoke gathering as I'd planned, I went to sleep instead. That was the right choice.

Thursday morning, thanks to the suggestion of rommate Sarah Frantz, I got room service. It was an unspeakable luxury not to have to hunt around for food, since I hadn't quite mastered the hotel's geography yet. However, I felt about a thousand times better than I had the night before, so everything made much more sense! I dropped off my postcards and bookmarks at the Goody Room and picked up various goodies for a Romance Diva friend who collects such things. I also visited the bookmarks of friends Kate Pearce and Jeannie Lin and snabbled a couple for my own use, even though I'd already pre-ordered their books.

Before lunch, I hung out in the lobby for a while with fellow Romance Divas, briefly interrupted by chats with my editor, who was passing by, and with Lucienne Diver, whom I hadn't seen on Wednesday. I really enjoyed Nora Roberts' keynote speech, and had a nice chat at the luncheon with Robin Rotham.

I worked out at the hotel's health club on Thursday afternoon, then that evening was the party for my online RWA chapter, Passionate Ink. Writer Angela Knight and scholar Sarah Frantz spoke most entertainingly, and I ate a lot of cheese. Soon after, I discovered my voicemail on my cell phone was wonky, so I dragged Ella Drake with me to fix it, because being without voicemail at a conference spells disaster.

I skipped dinner (remember all the cheese?) and then put on my pink pajamas and black satin robe to attend eHarlequin's annual Pajama Party. I was one of the first folks there, so got some interesting looks as I trekked through the crowded hotel lobby, along with a couple of "Pajama party?" queries. At the party, I holed up in a corner with roomie Elaine Golden and fellow writers Ella Drake, Leia Rice, Janet Mullany, and several others who wafted in and out, catching Amanda Berry and Jeannie Lin towards the end.

And so, dear reader, to bed.

Continued tomorrow!

Picspam of Rupert Brooke

I haven't done a lot of research on Rupert Brooke (1887-1915); he's not my favorite World War One poet by a longshot, and though he died in Greece while in the army (on the way to Gallipoli), he never saw combat. William Butler Yeats once described him as "the handsomest young man in England," though, and I do agree he was very, very pretty.




The Rupert Brooke Society.

Harlequin Party, RWA 2010

The dance floor was small, but lively!

Beverly Jenkins does air electric guitar.

My new cover flashed on the screen! Then I waited fifteen minutes, camera in hand, until it came up again, so I could take a picture.

More dancing.

RWA 2010 - Friday afternoon pics

Christopher Rowe, Diana Peterfreund, Gwenda Bond.

Vivian Arend and her hat.

Maria Snyder and Mindy Klasky.

Passionate Ink Party Picspam - RWA 2010