By Marilyn Baron It’s the last day of the month at the beginning of a New Year and this year I’m taking a big risk. I always follow the rules, but this year, my sister, Sharon Goldman, and I have decided to venture into uncharted territory, at least for us, and ride the indie publishing wave with the release of our new eBook, The Edger. I’ve tried the traditional route, diligently, and of course, would still love for that to happen. I have patiently met with editors and agents, submitted queries, waited for responses, sent in partials, even got promising [...]

Today, we’re so lucky to have the fabulous Pamela Mason in the house. Let’s see what she’s got cooking? Take it away, Pamela! ~~~~~ Jumping the Divide by Pamela Mason Happy Birthday Petits Fours and Hot Tamales! It’s an honor to be here as guest chef today. I tried to cut the ties. I tried to go cold turkey and be clean. Quit my addiction. If only my addiction would just quit me. Fat chance from the looks of my TBR pile and my melted down, newly replaced Kindle. (Yes, I broke a Kindle. Romance overload? Maybe….) Seems like only [...]

By: Judi Phillips Challah is the site of an ancient Roman settlement in Rabat, close to the King’s Palace and downtown.  A crumbled ruin, this outpost of the Roman Empire was probably established around by the Phoenicians in the 12th Century BC.    Sometime in the 1300s, the sultan Abou Said constructed a small fortress beside the site of the Roman ruins.    Later, his son, Abou al-Hassan, built a mosque. (Picture to the left.)  A successor rival walled the whole area off preventing access for a long time. (Picture to the right.)     These days, it’s inhabited by [...]

~~Good News~~   Life is great for the Petit Fours and Hot Tamales crew.  Things are completely different from the first year we started blogging and we are incredibly proud of everything we’ve accomplished in such a short amount of time. As a new feature for the blog this year, we thought we’d take a day each month and share some of the things we’re doing outside of the PF&HTs.  That designated day will be the fourth Saturday of each month.  We’d love for you to follow the links and take a peek at what we do outside of the [...]

Instead of looking ahead in this January post, I’m going to reflect back on 2011. In many ways it was a banner year for me. January started with a bang. I celebrated the ringing-in of the new year with Debbie and Sandy at the lake working on our books. Also that month my husband and I went to the college football championship game in Phoenix, Arizona. Auburn won. Big, big deal at our house. February brought health issues for me and a snow skiing trip for the family.  March was the month my youngest had jaw surgery. He is downright [...]

  Witness to An Earthquake by Stephanie Bond It’s not often that a person is witness to a shift in an entire industry, but that’s what happened to me at the Romantic Times (RT) booklovers conference in Los Angeles in April 2011. When I arrived at the hotel, it was clear from the buzz in the hallways that the topic of the conference was going to be the tsunami-like rise of self-e-publishing, both by brand new authors and authors who were veterans of print publishing. The news bomb had just been dropped that in February 2011, for the first time [...]

Have the Courage to Never Give Up by Judy Lynn Hubbard It takes remarkable courage not to give up on your dreams; don’t let anyone ever tell you that it doesn’t. Take my writing career for example. I’ve read stories, blog posts and seen interviews with various writers who have had their first novel bought by a major publishing house after one submission, writers whose manuscripts editors thought were perfect and required no rewrite and writers who have signed multi-deal contracts for seven-figure sums. Of course, none of those things happened to me—I just don’t have that kind of luck, [...]