Accepting a Romantic Challenge

by Paula Gail Benson

Maybe you’ve been hearing a lot of controversy about the Romance Writers of America lately. At this writing, the national organization has many issues to address; however, good things are happening with the local chapters. The opportunity I had to write “Wisest, Swiftest, Kindest” is one of them.

I’m not a reader of romance and I never planned on being a writer of romance, but I joined the Lowcountry Chapter of the Romance Writers of America (LRWA), based in Charleston, S.C., because of its craft programs and writing retreats. I very much appreciated all the good writing and marketing information I received at the meetings and through the online classes. Following a trip to Charleston, I always rode back to Columbia energized and ready to work even more diligently telling my stories.

This past year, I almost let my membership lapse. South Carolina now has many more groups that provide writing programs, ones taking place where I live rather than requiring travel.

But, I decided to re-up one more time and I’m truly glad I did.

The officers and members of LRWA decided to put together an anthology. Everyone in the chapter was encouraged to contribute. The organizers set up a rigorous process, including two beta readings and detailed submission of “collateral material” (read that as marketing tools including author bio and publication list, character bios, character photos available from royalty free sites or purchased for use, story excerpts, and tweets).

Here were the story requirements: they had to occur in Charleston, S.C., during any time-period, but set during the winter holidays (from Thanksgiving to New Year’s) and they had to be 7,500 words or less. Later, the 7,500-word-limit was extended to 10,000.

Okay, I tell myself. I can write short stories. Mostly I write mysteries in the 3,500 word range, but 7,500 is just two of my stories put together. And, I know the basics of a romance: attraction, conflict, HEA or HFN (“happily ever after” or “happy for now” for those uninitiated). How difficult could it be?

What’s the answer whenever that question is asked? Much more than expected. In my case, it was an eye-opening experience. My respect for romance writers, their craft, and their marketing skills has grown. I’ve learned so much that I can apply to any type or length of writing. I’m so incredibly glad I took on this challenge and had this group of dedicated women to walk me through the process, which included independent publication, another area about which I now have better knowledge.

Here’s some information about our anthology, Love in the Lowcountry (available on Amazon), the stories you’ll find there, and the authors who wrote them. Where available, please check out the links to the author websites.

Romance is heating up the winter holidays…

From paranormal to contemporary, from sweet to sultry, from first time love to love revived, discover both dark and deLIGHTful tales of romance amidst the intriguing backdrop of Charleston, South Carolina.

Best-selling authors join exciting new debuts in fourteen original stories of Love in the Lowcountry…

The Stories

Amy Quinton… – Hoodwinked for the Holidays – Wanted: Ghost with good reviews for special holiday tour. Team Player a must. Matchmaking skills NOT required.

Angela Mizell – Mistletoe and Mayhem – In the Unholy City, everyone has a secret.

Carla Susan Smith… – The Snow Leopard – What could be worse than being born into a family of shifters? Not being one.

Casey Porter… – The Illusion of Control– Having it together often means you don’t.

Elaine Reed… – Champagne Supernova– With everything going wrong, can she make New Year’s Eve go right?

Gracey Evans… – A Secret on Gillon – Bax’s fiery will and Raziel’s divine license to sin ignite trouble before fate steps in.

Jen Davis… – Hitman’s Holiday – His job is to kill her. But how can he take her life when she’s stolen his heart?

Jessie Vaughn – Kisses on King Street – It’s never too late to reclaim a lost love. Can rekindling a past romance yield later life love?

Michele Sims… – Poinsettias for Carly – A past unresolved is never the past.

Paula Gail Benson… – Wisest, Swiftest, Kindest – Two grad students connect though time travel to Charleston’s literary past. Is love enough to bring them home for Thanksgiving?

Rebecca A. Owens – A Charleston Christmas—Love Finds a Way – Is Chance and Wynona’s love strong enough to overcome a devastating loss and a deep secret?

Robin Hillyer-Miles – West End Club – Membership in West End Club is pure Charleston tradition. And marriage is the only way out of the December gathering.

Savannah J. Frierson… – A Silver Holiday – There’s better, there’s worse, then there’s spending the holidays with in-laws you can’t stand.

Zuzana Juhasova – Ghosted Home to You – She doesn’t need dating apps to get ghosted.

Wouldn’t you like to take a virtual vacation to Charleston, S.C.?

Remembering Tanya Gee

Judge Tanya Gee

by Paula Gail Benson

In August of 2013, I had the privilege of introducing WWK’s readers to Tanya Gee. Here’s a link to that interview, “Tanya Gee, My Hero.”

Now, I sadly must report her passing. Even though Tanya faced an aggressive form of cancer, she did so with grace, dignity, and humor. Writing was a critical part of Tanya’s life. Her efforts weren’t fiction, although she appreciated it. Tanya was a lawyer. A very good one. Her undergraduate degree was in sociology, and she was a student of people. But, she was more than just an observer. She reached out to others to help and encourage them. During her memorial service, her colleague, S. C. Supreme Court Justice Kaye Hearn, spoke of a sweet note Tanya kept on her desk from a child she spent time reading with at an elementary school. Tanya realized the value of words and used them well.

Perhaps the best example of Tanya’s effective communication is her final message she left on Facebook, which was later reprinted with the family’s permission in The State, Columbia, S.C.’s daily newspaper. She eloquently called it “her concession speech.” No one who knew and loved Tanya wanted to read those words. We had watched on the sidelines, cheering as she valiantly took on the dreaded cancer. She was our warrior. If anyone could beat it, she must have the essential skill. And, there were so many reasons that she needed to be a victor.

Even though she knew her body was failing her, Tanya’s mind and spirit remained strong. Here are her own words from her “concession speech”:

“We all die, right? And we all know we’re going to die someday. That’s part of living. Perhaps it’s because of this that I feel strangely calm about knowing that it will be cancer that kills me. I have many nights in the hospital room to reflect on life and death, and I tell you truly that I am not scared to die. I do feel a sense of guilt that I have let my body betray me and I will cause other people sadness. My children, my parents, my husband, and my dear friends will cry, and wonder, and question their faith. I wish that I were able to make everyone feel as calm as I do. I am damn proud of the life I lived, the children I have, the husband I married, and the circle of friends I leave behind. I hate that I’m leaving the party early, but am awed by being on the brink of taking the next step which we all should be looking forward to. . . .

“Writing this update is also difficult. I always talk about cancer using terms like ‘fight,’ ‘kicking ass,’ and ‘winning.’ I don’t like conceding that I have lost the fight because I don’t feel like a loser right now. I feel like I have one last battle in front of me, and that is to die well. That’s a battle I pledge to win.”

In the time since I interviewed Tanya, she became a judge. Her practice had been in appellate work, so it’s not surprising that she aspired to be a jurist. The fact that she achieved her dream and earned the overwhelming respect of the bench and bar was extraordinary considering that her own personal battle would have been enough to consume her time and energy.

But Tanya was a person who wanted to give back to her community. Even more, she wanted to be there for her wonderful family, her doting husband Chris and intelligent, courageous son Will and daughter Sabin.

Her Facebook page was full of happy references to her children’s activities and discoveries. She adored them. They are strong, beautiful human beings, a very large part of her incredible legacy. In Chris’ message to friends of Tanya’s passing, he said Sabin had been proud that her mother lived “an epic life.”

Thank you Chris, Will, and Sabin for sharing Tanya with us. We are equally proud and appreciative that our lives have been touched by hers.

Have you lost someone whose actions and words made an impact on your life?

Photo of Tanya Gee from FitsNews.com

After Labor Day Enjoyments by Paula Gail Benson

Dear WWKers,

I dedicate this message to E.B. Davis.

This year, my cousins and I spent the week after Labor Day at Litchfield Beach, located between Myrtle Beach and Georgetown in South Carolina.

Nestled next to Pawley’s Island, a community best known as “arrogantly shabby” where the ghost of the Gray Man warns folks to flee from approaching hurricanes (and those who heed find their property untouched by the storm), Litchfield is a quiet, family-oriented destination, with sandy shores bounded by stately sea oats, huge magnolias heavy in dark leaves, and tall oaks draped with Spanish moss.

Brookgreen Gardens Entrance Image by Kelley Nelson

Nearby is Brookgreen Gardens, a sculpture garden and wildlife preserve built on four former rice plantations and founded by scholar and philanthropist Archer Milton Huntington and his wife artist Anna Hyatt Huntington. Their former winter home Atalaya Castle is located in Huntington State Park and has an arts festival each September. Also in the vicinity is Hobcaw Barony, originally part of a 1718 royal land grant that was subdivided into fourteen plantations. Later it became the winter residence of millionaire Bernard Baruch, whose daughter Belle created a foundation for state colleges and universities to use as a place for teaching and researching forestry, marine biology, and care of wildlife.

Visiting after Labor Day is a different experience. Gone are the crowds of summer guests.

We met one visiting family with home-schooled children, but for the most part we encountered either adult tourists or residents who had reclaimed their territory. Together, we relished, relaxed, and thrived in the sun, sand, and waves.

One afternoon, we shopped at Litchfield Books, featuring a variety of fiction, nonfiction, books and items of local interest, and gifts, and the Hammock Shops Village, where the family of Riverboat Captain Joshua John Ward began selling sturdy cotton-rope hammocks in 1938. In the Village’s Mercantile, I had to indulge in several varieties of fudge, including dark chocolate with pecans, milk chocolate with caramel and pecans, and two flavors best sampled in unison. A sliver of salted caramel vanilla coupled with a thin slice of key lime gave the sensation of cheesecake with a tart aftertaste. Then, at the Coastal Wine Boutique, we discovered wine smoothies and acquired a Moscato tasting of peaches and honey.

Gini Abee, PGB, Jim Okes, Chester Abee, Brian Okes

Needless to say, the local cuisine is superb. We enjoyed eating at a number of establishments. Two family-run restaurants, Lee’s Inlet Kitchen, which has been operated for sixty-seven years in Murell’s Inlet, and Hanser House, located in Pawley’s Island, feature exceptional seafood, and delicious vegetables and sides. The breakfasts at Webster’s, a buffet located at Litchfield by the Sea Resort, and Applewood House of Pancakes, now offering pumpkin pancakes, provided bountiful servings.

Senator Luke Rankin, PGB, Jim Okes, Brian Okes

We returned to two favorites, the Rivertown Bistro in Conway, with awesome meatloaf, watermelon salad, and sweet potato chips, and Captain George’s, a monstrous seafood buffet in Myrtle Beach, that offered tons of crab legs as well as shrimp, oysters, scallops, and an impressive dessert bar. As we left, we stopped at Scott’s Barbeque in Hemingway. Written up in the New York Times and featured on the Food Channel, Scotts has been in business over thirty years preparing whole hogs (as well as turkeys and chickens) over wood burning pits.

Photo by Brian Okes

The morning after returning home, I stepped outside to mid-seventy degree temperatures. Fall was in the air. Even though I live in the sandhills, I felt as if I were in the cool of the highlands.

After an E.B. Davis dose of beach, I probably needed a Sam Morton mountain balance.

Home with head still in clouds,

Paula

 

P.S. If you haven’t already noticed, there are some really great books debuting this week: Susan F. Craft’s third novel in the post-Revolutionary War Xanthakos family series, Cassia, has the family captured by the murderous Captain Galeo (the Shark) and forced to witness his pirate crew recreate a mock trial complete with actual hanging. Art Taylor’s wonderful novel in short stories, On the Road with Del and Louise, (previously described in E.B. Davis’ interview with Art on WWK) takes you cross country with two disparate, sometimes desperate, and constantly delightful characters who work their ways into your heart. And, Robert Dugoni’s second book in his Tracy Crosswhite series, Her Final Breath, has the homicide detective beginning an investigation of a serial killer known as the Cowboy after having dealt with the sensational retrial of her sister’s killer in My Sister’s Grave. All marvelous reads, whether you’re on the beach, in the mountains, or anywhere in between!

What’s your favorite after Labor Day activity?