Once upon a time before I was an author, I was a therapist. Through answered prayers and open doors, God gave me the chance to earn a graduate degree in Marriage and Family Therapy. I was about a third of the way through my licensing hours when God led me to the next adventure in […]
My First Research Trip
If you’ve been around InspyRomance a while (long enough to experience a Sunday Edition or two when I’ve been on), you might have realized that I enjoy doing a few crafty type things. I taught myself to crochet when my husband and I were first married (mostly because we barely had two nickels to rub […]
When Art Inspires Life
Many authors get story inspiration from their own lives, myself included. But how about when something you’ve written in a book comes true in your life? Two years ago, when I joined the Arcadia Valley Romance project, I started my contribution with a novella called Sheltered Hearts. It introduced former major league baseball player Alex Quintana, recently […]
What’s Missing? by Deb Kastner
A Unique Christmas Mystery As many of you know, I’ve gone “hybrid,” which means I am independently publishing some books, writing some for a small press and continuing to write for Harlequin. This has completely spoiled me, because when I indie publish, the choice of what goes on my cover is entirely up to me. […]
Writing Retreat
Writing can be a very solitary, lonely pursuit. Even my husband, parents, and son don’t really understand the part of me that’s driven to get the stories out of my head and onto paper. I spent a lot of years going it alone. Eventually I found two local writing groups. Though some of the members […]
Be Still and Know He is God
Where are your favorite fall (autumn) vacation spots? What do you usually do when you’re on vacation this time of the year? Do you like to go to the beach or up to the mountains? If you like going to the mountains in the fall, what do you usually do there? Do you spend time […]
A Reservation for Romance: Behind the Scenes
A Reservation for Romance, the third and final installment of my Homegrown Love Stories series is finally releasing this week, and I’m hopeful you will enjoy Brooke and Grant’s story. I’ve shared before that Brooke Jennings Lockwood is one of my all-time favorite characters, and I really wanted to do her story justice. So […]
Family Traditions and a Giveaway
Jolene Navarro here. Good evening from my front porch in the Texas Hill Country. My small town roots run deep, so writing about families in this part of Texas comes naturally for me. It’s what I know and love. Of the things, I love most? The holiday season. Our big expanded family gathers at a […]
The Story Behind the Story: Harvest of Blessings
I became acquainted with June Foster a few years ago when I was starting out. We were in the same critique group at the time, and June was the most patient person ever mentoring me in showing versus telling. I love June’s books and her heart to use romance as she writes about tough issues. […]
First Impressions: And the Greatest of These is Love
by: Staci Stallings One of the things I think is strange about my writing life is how clear certain scenes are when they come out of me and how those scenes never really leave my memory. Each book seems to have a few of these, and often, years after the book is finished and I’ve […]