Special Guest: Anida Adler

Dr Jeckyll, Ms Hyde
The constant battle between the swooning maiden and the snarling dominatrix.

He was an absolute arsehole. The man was domineering, forceful, intimidating and, sometimes, rude. If I’d met him in real life, my alter ego would have sprung to life and… it doesn’t bear thinking of.

I first met that other me when I was about sixteen. My friend Adele and I were visiting her friend, Chrizelda. They had a swimming pool in their back garden - not an uncommon thing in South Africa. What they had which not many others did, however, was an enclosed lapa. A lapa is a thatched roof supported on wooden poles, which is usually open-sided. This one was more like a little house, and inside it was kitted out perfectly for teenagers. A dartboard was mounted on one wall. A fridge behind the bar was stocked with soft drinks. There were cane chairs to sit on. Most importantly, though, it had a pool table.

This lazy, hot afternoon, there was a group of boys visiting as well. In the company of beautiful, slim Adele and voluptuous, blonde Chrizelda, I felt my nerdy oddness even more acutely than usual. However, as the afternoon progressed, I turned from intimidated to annoyed. These boys were not the sharpest tools in the shed. And one of them took a particular dislike to me.

The little snot was good-looking, and he knew it. When he turned his sneering attention to me, something inside me woke up and snarled back. I had a retort ready for every cutting remark, a withering look for every superior glance. Then it came to a challenge of a pool game, and I took him up on it.

How in hell I managed it, I will never know. I’ve never been a great pool player, and the boy was generally considered more than competent at the game. Every other hormone-loaded teen there fell quiet as the competition progressed. I matched him shot for shot, and in the end, he only managed to beat me by a whisker.

The whole group looked at me with new respect. It was time for me to head home, and I did so with my head held high. That same head lowered gradually as the hours passed. What on earth had just happened? How had I managed that? But I did, and though it was very rare, this alter ego appeared again over the years, leaving a few arrogant bastards licking serious wounds in her wake.

Now the type of guy I so despise in real life confronted me again, this time from the pages of a book. And all I could think of was how much I was rooting for him to manage a shag with the heroine. What on earth is going on?

I’m not alone in this, you know. I’ll bet a hundred dollars… okay, wait. I’m broke this month. I’ll bet ten dollars that the vast majority of us would really hate many of the overbearing heroes depicted in romance novels, were they to knock on our doors. I outgrew my nerdyness, and had ample opportunity to prove to myself that a great looker only amuses you so far if he is not compatible with your personality. The man most pleasing to the eye in the whole world will lose his charms if a right bastard resides in that perfect body.

The man for most girls is the one who is great company, has a good sense of humour, is kind, considerate, compassionate and a good father. Thinking of my own life partner, it’s precisely because he gives me freedom and doesn’t dominate me, that I love him.

Why, then, do the guidelines of so many romance and erotica publications tactfully (and sometimes bluntly) advise authors that heroes need to be type A personalities? You know, the anal kind that are a walking target for heart attacks because they’re so… so… growly?

We want our independence, we want our freedom. We want to be respected as equals. And when we get anywhere near a bed with a naked man, we want to be DOMINATED! Tie me up, spank me, or at least take charge, for God’s sake. The whimpering heroine of the tacky novels of old is long gone. Yet in a way, she’s never left. The heroine must be strong, but the hero must be stronger! He doesn’t have to rescue her, she can rescue him… but then he must bed her and shag her senseless to say thank you. We want to read about the feisty lady, and we want to see her conquered by the hero’s inner bastard. What is wrong with us?

I don’t know the answer to this question. We’re all helpless in the face of our dual nature. But in a way, I think it’s fantastic that we have romance and erotica to live out this unfortunate aspect of ourselves. In a story it’s harmless, it’s exciting and fun. We can get rid of the urge to whimper, and get back to real life with a snarl.

The Ancient

By: Anida Adler

Blurb:

What would you do if you fell in love with the goddess of death?

June 1945 - Tadhg Daniels sees a woman clad in strange clothes and a feathered cloak, but she’s invisible to everyone else. He’s convinced his mind has been unhinged by the horrors of the D-day landings four days before, but when she appears to him again, the woman proves she is real. She is Morrigan, goddess of death, come to warn him his life is about to end.

Morrigan is disturbed by the man she meets. He looks in her eyes unflinching, while all others avoid her gaze. She’s never found such a strong will to survive in any of her charges before. He refuses to accept he’s going to die.

There is a way for Tadhg to cheat death, a secret Morrigan has guarded for millennia. Morrigan can save him if she takes him as her lover, but sex with the goddess of death will change him. He needs time to decide if he’s prepared to give up his humanity in order to be with her forever.

But Tadhg is not the only one who knows Morrigan’s secret. Someone else wants to take by force the gift she can bestow. And he’ll stop at nothing to get it.

Excerpt 1:

Rat-tat-tat, rat-tat-tat, and two more German soldiers lay dead on the ground that had soaked up the blood of so many good men. The smell of cordite stung his nose and roiled nausea in his stomach. He glanced down at their faces, a seasoned soldier, judging from the lines etched around his mouth, beside him a boy not much older than Stephen.

Not now, not now. There had to be time enough to let the agony of taking life from others flow through his heart. He shoved past Morrigán. Someone fell beside him, and he pulled the trigger, shot and killed, wounded, maimed, and moved on. Bullets zinged an inch past him, and he tumbled into a shell hole beside Mark, breath racing in his chest.

And she was there, beside him, silent, waiting.

“I will not die,” Tadhg growled, but rising fear clutched cold fingers at his throat.
“You’re right there, my friend.” Mark clapped his shoulder. “We’re going to get through this shit together and go horseback riding when this fuckup is over.” He turned his attention back to the fighting, back to the air cloyed with hatred, anger, despair, and fear, and killed more Germans so they would not kill him. “Come on!” Mark shouted to Tadhg and launched himself over the lip of the hole.

Tadhg glanced at Morrigán and hesitated. Her gaze rested on him, and he saw eternity in her eyes. “No, Morrigán. No.” And with that he followed Mark, lifted his body from safety -- and felt the bullets slam into his chest as if time had slowed to a trickle. He fell and slid back into the shell hole, stared up at the blue sky in stunned disbelief.

Sound receded until he lay in utter silence among screams of pain and anger, in the midst of pounding boots and rattling guns. He felt no pain, but it was difficult to breathe, and something wet bubbled on his lips.

Morrigán crouched beside him. Why did she look angry? “You want to live, poet? You want to live no matter what?”

Again he felt that odd sensation of a part of him accepting, looking forward to entering the land of shades. He could blend with the power of running horses, exist in the steaming joy of early morning gallops across dewy fields. Yet inside him, another part rebelled, struggled for life, even as he sensed the last few grains of sand sink to the narrow waist of the hourglass of his measure of days. And as he lay dying, he rested his gaze on Morrigán’s beautiful, pearl-white face, and the part that wanted to live grew, filled him, became all of him.

“Tadhg, answer me. Do you want to live, no matter what the price?”

He couldn’t speak. Dear God, she offered him a chance, and now, because his lungs were filling with blood, he could not force his voice to reach out for what he craved with his entire being. Blackness tinged the edges of his vision; he fought to hold the receding image of her face. He nodded his answer, and she reacted in an instant, flicked her cloak over his body, and Tadhg felt himself falling, falling into a landscape of terrible dreams.

Special Guest: Sandy Lender

Abra Abracadabra
By Fantasy Author Sandy Lender
http://www.authorsandylender.com/books.htm

How did I write a fantasy series with magic without using magic in the novel? As luck would have it, the fantasy genre lets me create all kinds of new elements. As a friend used to say to me, “If you need a tree somewhere, in fantasy, you can just put the tree there.” So I made up a “power” for the good guys in my series to wield.

Being a Southern Baptist, I believe that using magic and sorcery is a negative thing. Among other passages, the Bible has a section that warns not to practice divination or sorcery or engage in witchcraft, etc., so I wanted to be really careful not to suggest that the “good guys” in my series were using divination, sorcery, or witchcraft. Well, gee whiz, how to give the good guys an edge? Fantasy is full of magic—that’s one of the things that makes it fantastical, right? In a moment of compromise, I made up my own form of “power” for the good guys. I call it the geasa and it’s a god-breathed power that some people receive after conception.

Now, you can argue that I’m walking a fine line there, but, hey, it’s my fantasy world—I’ll walk a fine line if I want to. (Read that to the tune of “It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.”) Mwuahahahahaha.

To be serious, Choices Meant for Gods and Choices Meant for Kings are enjoyable for a variety of audiences, including high schoolers, so I wanted to be sure I wasn’t flinging confusing ideas into impressionable minds. I kept the “colorful language” to a minimum; I think you can count the naughty words in each novel on one hand. I kept the physical innuendoes to innuendo and made most of them rather humorous at that. I kept the romance to a sweet romance that doesn’t have characters compromising one another’s integrity. The PG-13 rating (which I noticed my publisher has changed to a PG rating recently) is for violence, which I struggled to keep from going into the “R” category.

What readers may find bizarre is that this nice little So Bapt Chickadee made up a polytheistic society with a not-quite-worthy deity for the coo-el heroine to protect. But, hey, it’s fantasy. Ya gotta make up something fantastical.

“Some days, you just want the dragon to win.”

Choices Meant for Kings

Blurb:
Chariss is in danger. Her geasa is hampered by the effects of a friend’s marriage. The dashing Nigel Taiman hides something from her, yet demands she stay at his family’s estate where he and her wizard guardian intend to keep her safe. But the sorcerer Lord Drake and Julette The Betrayer know she’s there, and their monstrous army marches that way.

When prophecies stack up to threaten an arrogant deity, Chariss must choose between the dragon that courts her and the ostracized kings of the Southlands for help. Evil stalks her at every turn and madness creeps over the goddess who guides her. Can an orphan-turned-Protector resist the dark side of her heritage? Or will she sacrifice all to keep her god-charge safe?

Excerpt:

As the soldier stepped toward him, Nigel reached out his arm and caught him by the neck. He slammed the captain against the far wall. He pinned him there with his body, leaning against the man as if he could crush the wind from him with his presence.

He brought his face close to the soldier’s ear and spoke lowly, fiercely, so that no one could have overheard him. The menace and intent behind the words was as surprising to the captain as the words themselves.

“I asked you to accompany [Chariss] on this journey tomorrow because I have faith in your sword, and until this moment I trusted you to keep your distance from her. Now, I find her down here at your side with a look upon your face that suggests more than you realize. So help me, Naegling, the only thing that stays my hand is how displeased she would be if she learned that I sliced you open.”

“The look you see is merely my concern for her honor. Nothing more.”

“I’m not a fool. And I’ll use every last piece of Arcana’s treasury to pay the prophets to justify my reasons for marrying that woman, so you can unconcern yourself with her honor.”

Hrazon stepped off the staircase then and saw Nigel pressed against his guard.

“I still believe you’re one of the best soldiers Arcana’s ever seen,” Nigel continued, “and I want you at her side for this journey, but, so help me, Naegling, she comes back alive and well and not confused in the least about her affections for me, or I will string you up from a tree in the orchard and attach your intestines to your horse’s saddle before I send it—”

Hrazon cleared his throat. “Excuse me. Is there an issue here I should address?”

Special Guest: C.L. Talmadge

Alpha Heroines

Alpha heroines, where are you? The top protagonists to admire and emulate in books, films, graphic novels, television, and video games are overwhelmingly male.

Alpha heroes abound throughout fiction in all media. These talented and dedicated characters are too numerous to list comprehensively, although any mention has to include contemporary mega favorites Batman, Harry Potter, Spiderman, and Superman. From the past there’s Dick Tracy and Flash Gordon, the Green Hornet and The Shadow. All of them terrific, and all of them are male.

Can’t a woman be an alpha hero, too?

To be sure, a handful of females hang out in the alpha heroism pantheon. They include Lara Croft, X-(Wo)Man Jean, Nancy Drew, Wonder Woman, and Xena the Warrior Princess. By and large, however, the ranks of alpha heroines are thin, and the reasons for this dearth have changed as women’s social role has evolved.

In the past, the creators and consumers of heroic fiction simply could not imagine women as courageous, strong-willed, and pro-active. Females were strictly to be rescued from peril, not do the rescuing themselves. Women provided eye candy and screams of terror-distress at appropriate moments to heighten the tension and help make the alpha hero’s exploits all the more remarkable. Females also could be the source of the alpha hero’s one weakness or play the ever present role of evil temptress (the ongoing rerun of woman as Eve).

Women have a lot more options and a bit more power in some societies today. So now alpha heroic fiction offers its primarily male audience an escape back to presumably happier times (at least for men). In these good old days, men were manly, a few were top heroes, and women knew and remained in their (subordinate) places. Much of today’s alpha heroes and their worlds are a tedious exercise in gender power nostalgia.

How tiresome and boring. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Bring us some alpha heroines!

It just so happens that alpha heroines inhabit the pages of the Green Stone of Healing® speculative epic. First-generation heroine Helen Andros, a “formidable protagonist,” according to Kirkus Discoveries, is an alpha heroine to the max. She is so tall, brainy, opinionated, and accomplished that she scares many men. She’s also dedicated to her calling as a physician and willing to take risks despite her fears to help patients who need her.

Helen is an alpha heroine in a society that is male dominated. Women are strictly second class in Azgard, the lost island nation where she lives. Helen is especially vulnerable in her world because she is a presumed orphaned, illegitimate half breed. Her long lost mother was a Turanian, the subjugated race in Azgard; her unknown father a member of the dominant Toltecs. In every sense, Helen sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb, and struggles to find a place in a society hostile to her very existence for numerous reasons.

The public unmasking of the identity of Helen’s father sets the tale in motion, and Helen’s dangers only continue to grow even though every now knows her father’s identity as one of the most powerful and highest ranked Toltec lords. The state-sanctioned, powerful Temple of Kronos wants Helen dead because its leader fears the mythical gifts and abilities of half-breeds as a challenge to his institution’s authority and prestige.

But Helen grows, too, picking up skills to defend herself and heal others by wielding a spiritual energy known as kura. She and her descendents, who will be alpha heroines as well, hold out a loving, inclusive alternative to theocrats who persecute anyone who does not look or believe as they do.

The priests’ drive for dominance ultimately destroys Azgard. But a descendent of Helen meets the challenge of preventing the total destruction of her people, leading them to a new beginning in what remains of a world shattered by the unloving lust for total control.

C.L. Talmadge is the author of the Green Stone of Healing® speculative epic. The fourth in the series, Outcast, will be published Oct. 1. Vote for the first book, The Vision, by midnight Sept. 25 and get a free e-book on healing, love, and spirituality. Details at her blog: www.healingstonebooks.com/stonescribe

The series features four generations of strong-willed female characters who inherit a mysterious green gem ultimately revealed to mend broken bones and broken hearts, protect against missiles, and render its wearers undetectable.

For more information about each book, please visit http://www.greenstoneofhealing.com/

Special Guest: Lorhainne Eckhart

What inspires me to write romance?

Life and those relationships that surround me, inspire me to write romance. I love romance and I do believe we all need a little bit in our life. Whatever the story I am writing, there is always that key component the guy and the girl, a love story centered on them. Life is full of so many conflicts, trying times and troubling news. Out of that I see a resolve to a happier ending. So I start creating the story to that happy ending, with all the twists and turns that can arise out of that journey to love.

I believe with everything that we work through in our days one thing that adds that something special, is romance. We all need it to exist, to be happy and it is truly good for our soul.

Whatever bad times may be going on around us, whether it is in our personal life, with conflicts, local economy or a difficult path in your life. The one thing that is inspiring to me is romance and that happy ending which we all want to happen when times are difficult.

So add a little romance to your life, to spice it up, to give you hope.

The Captain's Lady
by Lorhainne Eckhart

Blurb:

Captain Eric Hamilton is a powerful force in the U.S. Navy, having earned himself a reputation of being a hard-nosed chauvinist. He’s commander of the USS Larsen, a destroyer, currently deployed in the Persian Gulf during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Abby Carlton has just escaped from the man who held her captive for a year. Abducted while travelling in Paris, she was given to an Arab man as a gift, until one night she makes her desperate escape.

While on patrol one morning Captain Eric Hamilton discovers a dinghy floating aimlessly. Abby is found, battered and in an advanced state of pregnancy, lying in the bottom of the dinghy. From the moment she lay on the deck of his ship her innocence finds a way to penetrate his hardened heart. But time is running out. Eric is falsely accused of sexual assault and the CIA wants Abby and the baby for bait to flush out her captor.

Excerpt:

“We have no reports of a ship in distress in the area, Captain.”

“What about fishing boats?”

“No, sir, no reports.”

Looking once more at his first officer, Eric issued curt orders, the harshness grating in his voice. “Send a rescue team to check it out.”

Handing the binoculars off to one of the crew members, he strode with determination off the bridge, heading directly to the ship’s launch. His well-trained crew scurried about. Joe appeared at his side and they watched from the rail as the small rigid hull sped off in the direction of the dinghy. His pulse rose and the dampness on his back soaked through his short-sleeved shirt.

“So what do you think?” Joe leaned on the rail, uncertainty clear in the crinkle of his brows.

“Don’t know, dammit.” Eric focused on the scene unfolding in the distance. Again he commandeered the binoculars from Joe and scrutinized the three-man team approaching, then securing the boat to the dinghy.

His senses were keen; over the years, he’d learned to trust them. The uneasiness that crept its way into his gut, the hairs now standing up on the back of his neck and the racing of his heart; this unshakable feeling was telling him that things were about to change—drastically. Puzzled, he felt the mounting frustration build inside, along with something else he could not quite put his finger on. Shaking his head, he realized it was not a feeling of dread.

The crackle of the radio interrupted his speculation. A voice from the rescue team came over the line. “There’s someone in here, a woman, and she’s in bad shape.”

RWA Board Candidate Cynthia D. Morgan

First, thanks to the ladies of the blog for hosting my ramblings today.

And second, voting for the 2010 RWA Board Elections started on Tuesday. Voting runs all month to allow those members without email addresses to be notified via snail mail. If RWA has your email address, you should have received a passcode and a link to the voting site. If, as you read this, you have not received this email, and RWA has your email address on file, you might want to check with the national office. Or you might check your spam mail filter. Either way, it’s important to voice your opinion by voting.

Now, all this week, I’ve been roaming around the internet talking about the 2010 RWA Board Elections, specifically my run for PRO Liaison. My bio, vision statement and answers to the board questionnaire are all on my website (http://cynthiadalba.blogspot.com/) so I won’t use up space repeating them here. The last two days, I have been talking with other PROs about what RWA PRO membership means, why the designation was created, and what kinds of issues do PRO members feel need to be addressed. Take a minute and read the posts of these blogs and the comments.

Why does PRO membership exist on EveryoneNeedsALittleRomance (http://everybodyneedsalittleromance.com/2009/09/02/why-does-rwa-pro-exists/)

and

The importance of volunteering on The Pink Fuzzy Slipper Writers (http://pinkfuzzyslipperwriters.blogspot.com/)

From what I’m hearing from other PRO members, they were surprised to discover that PRO was created to enhance knowledge of the business aspects of publishing, not the craft. I know that the ladies of this blog are PRO members. Did you know that? The comments on Everyone Needs A Little Romance are excellent and thought provoking and I encourage you all to read them.

Yesterday when talking about volunteerism, the readers were surprised to discover there were PRO committees they could volunteer for. I’ve heard many PRO talk about what they’d like to see happen with the Pro-Org yahoo loop. Did you know that you can affect that loop by being on the PRO-Communications committee?

So talk to me. What PRO issue is burning a hole in your gut? And if helping grow and improve the PRO element of RWA would require that you volunteer two hours a month, could you do that?

Thanks for reading this and a HUGE thank you to all my friends who have roamed blog to blog with me this week, keeping me company, and sharing their opinions (not that any of them are too shy or bashful to tell me what they think on everything!)

And if you haven’t voted, get out there and vote.

Have a Safe and Happy Labor Day Weekend.

RWA Board Candidate Karen Steele

Why am I running for a seat on the RWA Board of Directors?

By Karen Steele

When I first started talking to some friends about whether I should run for office as an RWA director, they began showering me with comments and suggestions.

The things they brought up were as varied as they were entertaining. Well they entertained me, but then that's why they're my friends. The conversations went something like this.

"You'll have less time to write. You'd need to get up before the kids do to get anything done."

"Then I'll just have to write smarter. Getting up early or staying up late isn’t anything new - I think I can handle the absence of sunlight with my coffee."

"You're going to have to bury yourself in bylaws, policy, and committee work. Why do you want to do that?"

"I've spent the last 3 years as a chapter officer loving almost every minute of bylaws, policy, and committee work." I do love the blank stare that often generates.

"Are you positive you want to run for the RWA board? I'm pretty sure they don't even have a cover model competition at their conference."

"Yes I'm sure, and no, they don't." (This friend, who has never been to an RWA national conference, went on to say she thinks it would really liven up the Golden Heart / Rita ceremony if we could just throw in some cover models. I suggested she write a letter to the event organizers and maybe try to get to a conference herself sometime in the future.)

"You won't be able to serve on your chapter board anymore."

I paused on this one. I do love my chapters, and working with the chapter board is something I've enjoyed. "I'll still be in the chapters though. And you don't have to serve on a board to be an active part of a chapter."

"Ah-ha. So if you don't have to be on the board to be an active member, why are you running for the board?"

I was starting to think maybe my friends didn't know me very well by now. So I called my best writer friend, the one who's known me since before I even joined RWA.
"I'm thinking about running for the board of RWA" I told her.

"Good. I think you'll do a great job. Now tell me why."

It's a good thing only one person brought up the cover model thing, or this post might have gone down an entirely different thematic road. But that "why" question was becoming my running-for-office theme. With each person I talked to, I became even more convinced that running for a seat on the board was the right thing for me to be doing now.

So, why? For starters, I love RWA. I know I’d still be writing if I had never joined, but I wouldn’t be writing as well. I might still be published, but I don’t think my work would be as polished and professional. If you want to become a comedian, I’m pretty sure you don’t sit in your bedroom telling jokes to no one besides yourself for five years. You head out to the comedy clubs and learn from the pros. Then you get on stage, and see if anyone laughs.

No one laughs when I get on stage, or if they do it’s probably not for the right reasons. So I stick to writing.

When I joined my first RWA chapters I looked at the authors around me. I saw people like me, just getting started. And there were members who had just sold a first book, who were celebrating their twentieth sale, some that were bleeding over a rejection and others celebrating finding an agent. But no matter where they were in their career, they were all focused on becoming the best writer they could be. And they were all there with their advice, support, cheers, and tissues when they were needed.

The chapters I belong to range in size from several dozen to several hundred members. Each chapter has its own sense of spirit, but they all share one common, unifying theme. We support each other and know that as each member grows and succeeds, our chapter grows and flourishes with her (or him). And the chapter board members each work as hard as any volunteer can to make sure their chapters and members keep moving forward together towards success.

Over the past few years it seems this sense of unification has not flourished on a national level. We've seen publisher controversy, eligible vs. recognized disarray, contest confusion, even a complete kerfuffle over something that's meant to be as positive as an awards ceremony.

Except for that last one (I'm still trying to figure out how that one happened myself) some of the most strident disputes have been over issues that build walls between members. Writers have been divided, pushing the membership into labeled groups instead of joining them into a unified organization.

Now I'm not looking to lead a round of Kumbaya around a council campfire. If you’d ever heard me sing – and you probably haven’t, because I don’t sing - you’d know that would probably lead to me drinking alone at the bar when everything was said and done. But I am interested in finding ways to bring the spirit of the membership back to where it started. When those 37 original members formed RWA nearly 30 years ago, I don’t think they felt a need to divide the membership based on where each member was in their career. They just wanted to become successful writers, and to support their fellow writers while they reached for their own success.

It takes a completely different level of leadership to educate and advocate for 10,000 writers than it does for 37. With the growth of membership came a lot of good things. But if it came with the loss of unity, I think we need to ask ourselves if all the growth has come in positive directions.

I don’t have an agenda, or a pet cause. I’m pro-writer, no matter if you are writing with your toes or with a keyboard, published on printed paper or digitally. I truly believe that just as there is no single "right" way to write, there is no single "right" way to publish. I wish to work with the board on educating members to the new choices and challenges that open to them every year, and promoting membership development as RWA continues to grow into an organization that serves and advocates for every one of its members.

And that is why I am running for a seat on the Romance Writers of America Board of Directors.

I encourage you to email me at kasteeleauthor@bellsouth.net if you have any questions.

You can see more information on me at my website, http://kasteele.com, and complete information on all the candidates at www.rwanational.org

Biography :
Karen Steele is currently running for a seat on the RWA Board of Directors as Region 3 Director. She lives with her husband and two children in Florida. Under the name Ember Case, she writes for Samhain Publishing.

Karen joined RWA in 2006. She has served the Passionate Ink chapter as Treasurer, Website Administrator, Contest Coordinator, and on numerous committees. She is also a member of ESPAN, the newly formed YARWA, and the First Coast Romance Writers. An active member of Romance Writers of America, she has previously served as contest judge and conference volunteer.

Karen is also a graphic artist, and has been a small business owner for over 15 years. To learn more about her writing, visit www.embercase.com or www.kasteele.com