Linda Morelli
P. O. Box 551
Glen Echo, MD 20812-0551
RomRiter@aol.com
www.lindamorelli.us
April 2004, Issue No. 10

Spring has Sprung...

Yes, it’s here—the wonderful season that brings sprouting flowers, buzzing bees, and lots of warm, welcome sunshine. And it isn’t only birds that flutter around, looking for mates, right? (Hey, after all, I am a romance author.) Fortunately, my husband and I have been happily married for over 23 years now, so that’s one problem we don’t have.

Speaking of marriage, my husband decided to take me away from my computer for the day to celebrate our 23rd anniversary, which was on April 4th. While our older daughter watched the kids (her anniversary gift to us, and one we truly appreciated), we visited Georgetown (that’s in Washington, DC, for those of you who don’t know), our old haunting ground which has changed quite a bit in the few years since we were last there.

After touring through the antique shops and art galleries, and deciding the prices were too rich for us (not a surprise), we went into Mr. Smith’s Restaurant. Now, this is the place where we became engaged, so that wasn’t a coincidence. It was a coincidence, however, when they sat us at the same table we shared all those years ago. Hubby and I smiled and held hands as we talked about that evening, and all the great times we’ve had since then. We’ve watched our first two children grow up to become wonderful adults of whom we are so very proud, then we talked about our two youngest children, whom we adopted when we were in our late forties and early fifties.

Naturally, the waitress noticed us and asked if we were newlyweds, which had us laughing. “Hardly,” we told her, “not with four kids. But we ate at this exact table when we became engaged 24 years ago.”

Well, imagine our surprise when she brought us strawberry shortcake—a gift from the restaurant—to celebrate the event. Needless to say, it was yummy!

And starting with this issue of my newsletter, I have a special surprise for you: a column devoted to some aspect of writing and promotion. I’m especially pleased to offer an article written by two wonderful authors, Kathleen Walls and Joseph L. O'Steen, entitled “Dress for Success.” You’ll find it later in this newsletter.

Latest Contest...

I received over 400 entries for my special “Valentine’s Romance” contest! Since my 9 year-old son picked the winner last time, my 11 year-old daughter wanted to pick the lucky winner for this contest. Here’s a hearty congratulations to Traci Creager of Jacobus, PA!

I will have two drawings for my next contest. One lucky winner will win a purse-sized, hand-made (by yours truly) notebook.

The second lucky winner will win an autographed 8 x 10” copy of FIERY SURRENDER’s cover, which I designed and painted myself.

The contest begins May 1st and ends June 30th, so be sure to enter soon. Simply send me your name and address via E-mail (romriter@aol.com) or regular mail (Linda Morelli, P.O. Box 551, Glen Echo, MD 20812-0551). Be sure to put “Contest” in the subject of your E-mail or on the envelope. Good luck!

Gotta Write Network Online Update...

My latest author interviews featured on GWN are with Gail Martin, historical and inspirational romance author whose latest release is Loving Care; Kate Dolan, author of the historical romance, Langley’s Choice; and regency author Meredith Bond, who wrote Miss Seton’s Sonata, released in January 2004, and whose next novel, Wooing Miss Whately, will be released by Zebra in June. I also have a special interview at GWN with Carolyn Howard-Johnson, an author and marketing promoter extraordinaire who also does reviews for several online review sites. Upcoming reviews will feature romance authors Peggy Moreland and Cynthia Pratt, among others.

To view the above or my past interviews, please visit http://www.gottawritenetwork.com/, click on “Genre” and then “Historical.”

New Review...

Teresa Henson, a reviewer for Romance Junkies.com, recently reviewed FIERY SURRENDER. Here’s a brief snippet of her review:

“From the start I was captured by the exciting beginning of this book. FIERY SURRENDER starts off with a great impact, and continues it on throughout the entire story. Full of spirit and life, the hero and heroine made me fall in love with them immediately. I could empathize with the plight of her parents, and wanted to strangle some of the secondary characters that Monique met in Paris. I loved the twists this story took, and the adventures and misadventures, the hero and heroine went through. Ms. Morelli is a wonderful storyteller, and I will be looking forward to reading more of her books in the future. This is the first one of her books I have read, but for sure, it won’t be the last!”

Please visit http://www.romancejunkies.com/artman/ publish/article_1081.shtml to read the full review.


Appearances and Book Signings...

June 4-6, 2004, Shepherd College, Shepherdstown, WV
CANCELLED

The exciting three-day writing conference at Shepherd College in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, in which I was to participate in several panels, was cancelled. I have to commend Barbara Cummings, a fellow Washington Romance Writer and instructor at the college, who put a lot of effort into the event. She has assured me that the conference will be rescheduled for the summer of 2005.

Sunday, April 25, 2004, 3–4:30PM, “Romance Is In The Air” Booksigning, Just Cakes, 4849 Rugby Ave., Bethesda, MD 20814

I’ve arranged a signing during Bethesda’s yearly Literary Festival. Originally scheduled to be held at the Rock Bottom Restaurant, it will now be at Just Cakes, a wonderful new bakery and wedding cake shop. So if you’re in the area, please join me and fellow romance authors Meredith Bond, Glenda Garland, Michelle Monkou and Mia Zachary on Sunday from 3-4:40 p.m. The owner, Marge Schinnerer, has informed me that she will bake some special treats for this book signing. For more info or directions, please call Marge at: (301) 718-5111

Saturday, May 15, 2004, 10AM-4PM, Washington Romance Writers' Historical Day, Church of the Covenant,
2666 N. Military Road, Arlington, VA 22207

Come join Newbold (Newbie) Richardson, a material cultures historian, who will discuss social conventions surrounding the dress of women from the Middle Ages to the Jazz Age. I will join other WRW authors who will discuss and autograph their books. This event is open to the public. For more information, email Lori Pepio at lori@loripepio.com.

Thursday, May 20, 2004, 7:30 PM, BEHIND THE WRITING-Authors' Insights and Inspirations, Barnes & Noble, 2516 Solomon’s Island Road, Annapolis, MD 21401

Please join me and fellow authors Catherine Asaro, Jack Bludis, Loree Lough and Mia Zachary for this special panel discussion on how, when and why we write, followed by a short Q&A and booksigning. For more info or directions, please call (410) 573-1115.

Sunday, May 23, 2003, 2-4 PM, “Collecting Romances & Reading”, Kensington Row Bookshop, 3786 Howard Avenue, Kensington, MD 20895

This is a special treat for collectors of romance fiction! Cynthia Parker of Silver Spring Treasure Books will speak about "Collecting Romance Books" – an important discussion for those of you who are real romance lovers! I will do a reading, followed by a booksigning. This is a "don't miss" event! For more info/directions, call Elisenda, the owner, at (301) 949-9416, or email her at: kensingtonbooks@yahoo.com

Latest News...

I’m getting ready to attend Washington Romance Writers’ Spring Retreat at the historical Hilltop House in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, during April 20 – May 1. This is an event that agents and editors love to attend. Why? It’s a true “retreat” atmosphere, has a limited number of attendees, and sells out in few days.

Hilltop House is an old stone Inn built in 1888 and sits on a bluff 250 feet above the junction of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers. The view is nothing less than spectacular, and was even immortalized in a poem by Carl Sandburg: “Robert Harper’s Ferry is an island in the stream of time; Hilltop House the bridge to its yesterdays.”

For those of you who are history buffs (and I admit to being among that group), Harpers Ferry is the scene of John Brown’s raise on the U.S. Arsenal in 1859 and was acknowledged as being the key to the safety of Washington during the Civil War.

WRW has lined up a wonderful program which includes multi-published, award-winning authors Connie Brockway, Loretta Chase, Christina Dodd, Theresa Meyers, Pam Regis and Susan Wiggs.

Naturally, I haven’t missed a retreat since I joined WRW in 1994, and I’ve even served as the Retreat Chair (as well as WRW’s Vice President). Last year and again this year, my good friend and wonderful author, Michelle Monkou, is Retreat Chair. When she asked me to serve as the Retreat Registrar for this year, I couldn’t refuse, especially when she added that WRW is celebrating the retreat’s 20th anniversary.

I’ll post a special report on the retreat shortly after it concludes on my AOL website, Linda’s Place – A Site for Romance Readers and Writers, under my new “Articles” page. And if you get a chance, please stop by and check out my redesigned site. Here’s the link: http://hometown.aol.com/lbmwriter/romance/Index.html I’ve added lots of new historical links, photos and an article about a recent media blitz.

Dress for Success...

As promised, here’s the special article I mentioned earlier, written by Kathleen Walls and Joseph L. O'Steen.

With the sluggish economy and more books on the market than ever before, how can an author make his or her book stand out? One-way to accomplice this and have a lot of fun in be bargain is to dress for success. No, not a three-piece suit! Do your signings dressed as your character. This works especially well if your book is a historical romance or other book set in a different time frame.
I have done this successfully as either a character from my Kudzu, Weezie. Kudzu is a romance/mystery and in it my heroine, Casey, is transported from present day north Georgia into the past when she begins to read her great grandmother’s diary. In the past she finds herself inside the mind of her ancestor, Louisa Garrett. Louisa was born in 1865 and lived until 1970 when great granddaughter Casey was a precocious five year old listening to her Granny Weezie telling tales of the missing Confederate Treasury.
A simple long skirt of a patchwork material and a genuine antique white blouse topped off with a flowered straw hat, and I am Weezie. I wear a pair of present day shoes that resemble the black high top lace up ones worn in the 1800’s. At signings I tell tales in character about life in 1870’s Appalachia. Samples of Appalachian crafts, such as a small quilt and a woven basket, add even more interest.
An alternative costume I wear is an antebellum lace bridal gown complete with hoop petticoat. It is a replica of one worn by the mannequin on the cover of my Georgia’s Ghostly Getaways, a ghost story travel book. At present, I have not acted in character with this one, but I am thinking of picking one of the ghost stories about a Civil War bride and using that character for this costume. Or I may make up a fictitious history for her.
I do have a start and a name. The mannequin has been named Jane by the staff of the Marietta Museum of History where she is located. I plan to build on that and create a complete persona for Jane.
I use Jane mostly at Civil War re-enactments. I have found, if your book is set in that period, it is a great place to sell books. You have a lot of fun and learn to appreciate history at one of these events as well.
Another good venue to promote your books is to take your character to storytelling festivals. After all, you already have a story in the book where you created this character. Why not carry it one step farther?
This ploy works well for men authors as well. This is what one male author has to say about the subject.

***

I’m having a great time with my costume. I really enjoy it when I see people start smiling as soon as they see me. Most have to come right over to see what I am about, with many buying my book. That is when I know I made the right choice, even if I did not start wearing a costume for fun.
You see, I write sea novels about a British naval officer in the Napoleonic Wars. The first novel, Falcon's Revenge, is doing well elsewhere, but not at home here in St. Augustine and Northeast Florida. My attempts to get the local media's attention have been zero so I decided to try something new. I call it “getting outside the box." We all know that box we tend to stay in while promoting our books the normal ways.
I recently commissioned a Civil War seamstress to make an 1803 British Naval Captain's uniform. I then wrote WJXT TV4 and told the producer about my book and that I do book signings in the British naval uniform. That worked and Sunday, March 21st, I was scheduled for a 3 1/2 minute interview. The interview went very well. The hostess, Nancy Rubin, was very excited, held the book up several times, kept referring to the uniform as she questioned me about the book and the series I am writing, and placed my web site and the Tall Ships Books’ (a big seller of my book) urls on the screen with plenty of time for everyone to write down the information. Another sign that it went well was that the scheduled 3 1/2 minute interview stretched into 4 1/2 minutes. It was a fun experience for me.
Since then, Robert Fulton, Jr., PhD, has asked permission to use me and my uniform marketing idea in his marketing seminars, and an online magazine, as well as a marketing newsletter, have asked for permission to run articles about my new marketing tool and me. The hits are up on my web site, I’m having a great time playing in my costume and smiling people are buying my book.
Life is good. I’m sitting here trying to figure how to use it to garner some regional and national attention. You see, once you step “Outside the Box,” you will see that there is no end to the marketing ideas that come to you.

***

Kathleen Walls is the Publisher of Global Authors Publications www.globalauthorspublications.com and author of Last Step, Georgia's Ghostly Getaways, Kudzu, Man Hunt-The Eric Rudolph Story and Finding Florida's Phantoms. Please visit her website at www.katywalls.com/

Joseph L. O'Steen is the author, Falcon's Revenge, book one of the Nathan Beauchamp of the Royal Navy Series Snug Harbor Novels, Neetso Publishing. Please visit his website at http://josephlosteen.com


Recipe Corner...

Low carb/cholesterol diets are the rage right now, so I thought I’d provide a recipe that has zero carbs, 175 calories per serving, lots of vitamin C, and is easy to make. It serves 2, but you can adjust the recipe to serve as many guests as you need.

Minted Citrus Salad (Serves 2)

1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup water
3 Tbsp. fresh mint sprigs (or 1 Tbsp. dry mint leaves)
Juice of 1 orange, including pulp
1 grapefruit, peeled and cut into 8 slices
2 small oranges, peeled and cut into 6 slices
Mint sprigs for garnish

Dressing:

1. In a small saucepan, combine sugar and water, and stir until sugar is dissolved.
2. Bring to a boil, then remove from heat and add mint.
3. Allow to cool for 1 hour.
4. Strain dressing, then add orange juice.

Salad:
1. Arrange grapefruit and orange slices on 2 plates.
2. Top with 3 to 4 tablespoons dressing and garnish with mint.

Refrigerate remaining dressing for later use. It tastes great over vanilla ice cream or added to iced tea.

Question or comments?

I hope you enjoyed this newsletter. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to write me c/o my post office:

Linda Morelli
P.O. Box 551
Glen Echo, MD 20812-0551

Or by Email: RomRiter@aol.com. I’d love to hear from you!

And please be sure to visit my website at www.lindamorelli.us for my latest news, contest, events and signings.

Until next time, all the best!

Linda Morelli