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Bucket List Item – Staying at the “Real” Inn Significant
*** Tomorrow, my birthday wish will come true, thanks to my husband. When he asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I told him I wanted to stay at the Sandaway Suites & Beach in the quaint, Eastern Shore town of Oxford, Maryland. It just so happens that it’s the real-life inn that inspired my third novel, Inn Significant. The original plan for that novel was to have it set in Annapolis, just as my first book was set there (that one’s called Beneath the Mimosa Tree). I headed to Annapolis with my camera in hand, and began to stroll all the side streets in search of that place that…
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My Books Are All Influenced by Maryland: #ReadLocalDC Blog Hop
*** Magical Maryland. That’s what I like to call it. Our state has a lot to offer people who like variety—the mountains to our west, the beaches to our east, the Chesapeake Bay, nearby Baltimore and Washington, D.C., theme parks and casinos, pretty state parks and delicious Maryland crabs, the picturesque and historic capital city of Annapolis, and numerous quaint, tucked away towns and cities with charms all their own. I’ve lived in Maryland since I was five. I grew up in Bowie and Annapolis. I went to college in Towson at Towson University. Along with my husband and children, we’ve lived in Baltimore City, Ellicott City, and Severna Park.…
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Wednesday Wardrobe & The Blue Angels: The Petite Professor
* For those of us who live in the Annapolis area, today’s a big day. Huge. It should be declared a holiday in Anne Arundel County where the Naval Academy is situated on the grounds of Annapolis in the city because the Blue Angels fly as part of graduation week. All of us, whether we know someone at the Academy or not, benefit from this wonderful tradition. My clever mother booked us at the Severn Inn, which sits on the Severn River across from the Naval Academy, for the second year in a row. Our table was on the deck of the restaurant with a clear view of the river,…
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The Real People Who Have Inspired My Leading Men
As I did a few weeks ago, I thought I’d continue this series which was inspired by a fellow writer’s blog whereby he wrote a post about people who have inspired his characters along the way. I loved reading his insights and what informed his writing, so I’m going to continue doing so with people who have inspired some of my own characters in my novels. Again, I’ll pick three, one from each book. MICHAEL CONTELLI from BENEATH THE MIMOSA TREE When I was little and my grandmother and grandfather (Nanny and Poppy) lived in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, on Myrtle Avenue, I would regularly visit. We didn’t move from…
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The Real People Who Have Inspired Some of My Characters
I was reading a fellow writer’s blog today, and he wrote a post about people who have inspired him along the way: both those who have encouraged him to write and those who have inspired the characters he has written. It was enlightening to read his thoughts, so I decided to share what has inspired some of my own characters in my novels. We’ll start with three today, one from each book. VIVI IN BENEATH THE MIMOSA TREE Some of you may know that the character of Vivi in Beneath the Mimosa Tree was inspired by my own grandmother, Eleanor, who passed away when I was in my twenties. I…
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An Updated Trailer for Beneath the Mimosa Tree
As I’ve worked hard over the last month to unify the look of the covers of my previously published novels, I decided to tackle another form of unification, and that’s creating trailers that are a little better than the old ones I produced years ago and have a similar feel. With a little more insight into video production from some of my students, I decided to give my trailers another go. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve researched other writers’ trailers, and there were things I liked and wanted to incorporate into my own. After reading Start with Why by Simon Sinek, I’ve had to reevaluate everything I do…
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Why I Write ‘feel good’ Novels…A Kid Off to College…and Two Queens
WHY I WRITE ‘FEEL GOOD’ NOVELS Yesterday, when author and television personality Rick Steves spoke to students about the passion he has for his job, he mentioned the word positivity–that he considers himself a positive person, and his approach to life is that of a positive person. He and I are alike in that regard. Despite a small snippet of time during my 52-years of life when I took a little bit of an Eyeore-ish turn, I like to think that I look at the world through a lens that is mostly positive. No one is perfect, however, and I have to catch myself every now and then when I…
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Tips To Get You Started on Your Novel
When people ask me how to begin writing a novel, this is what I usually tell them, along with “believe in yourself” and “go for it.” For an upcoming artist collaboration and exhibit scheduled at our university for this Thursday, I drafted a little infographic. This infographic includes tips about writing novels and some of the things that I’ve been taught over the years, along with what I’ve gained from the experience of writing three indie novels. William Zinsser, in his famous book On Writing Well, says it best about writing: “Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time,…
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Kind of In Love With the Eastern Shore
Two weekends ago, my husband and I celebrated 20 years of marriage with a quick getaway to St. Michaels, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. It’s near the other town I love, Oxford, Maryland, where my novel, Inn Significant, is set. Both those towns have a ton of charm and are surrounded by water. They are quite special. We stayed at the Inn at Perry Cabin by Belmond, a place we had stayed many moons ago. As St. Michaels was celebrating Midnight Madness on the evening of December 2, we thought it would be fun to be a part of the…well…madness. With shops open until midnight, festive decorations lighting up the town,…
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Two Upcoming Book Talks & Signings
*** I’ll be taking Inn Significant on the road for a couple of upcoming books talks and signings. The first, to kick off the Summer Reading Program at the Broadneck Library in Annapolis, Maryland, I’ll be doing a book talk and signing on Monday, June 19 at 7 p.m. The Broadneck Library has scheduled me for all three books I’ve published–they are so dear. A special thanks to Shirley Lord for always being so kind. And Annapolis was the setting of my first book, Beneath the Mimosa Tree. We had a good turnout for Baseball Girl; hopefully, some of you will come and join the fun in Annapolis. The second…
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The Things He Cherished
*** I suppose I’ve always had a fascination for living near the water, and it shows up in my writing. Inn Significant, my latest novel, is set in an Inn on the Tred Avon River in Oxford, Maryland, and features a love story within a love story. There’s something wholly romantic about living near the water, the peacefulness of it all, and the sentimental feelings I have about it come out in my storytelling. Today, I thought I’d feature the first poem I ever had published a few years ago. I’ve been writing poetry for ages (I think my earliest poem dates back to 6th grade), but I don’t often…
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Through Books, You Can Travel
*** One of my favorite aspects about reading novels is that they allow us to travel to places we may never get to experience, at least not the same way the author sees them. Books such as Adriana Trigiani’s The Shoemaker’s Wife or Alice Hoffman’s The Museum of Extraordinary Things—two books I can’t and have no desire to get out of my head—submerge us into different aspects of the world and see it through their eyes. As another example, who reads Maeve Binchy’s novels and doesn’t want to go to Ireland? Who reads anything by Rosamunde Pilcher and doesn’t want to visit England and the villages of Cornwall? On the flip side, as…
