I vividly remember reading my first Harlequin Romance novel. It was at summer camp in 1972. The title and the author escape me now, but it was a Christmas story, set in a big old house, where the hero was stranded by a snow storm with the heroine’s family. At twelve years old, I thought it was the greatest story I’d ever read. You can imagine my delight when I found out there were more!

For nearly a decade, I delved into the genre, reading short books, long books, contemporaries, getting caught up in the heyday of historicals when Kathleen Woodiwiss set her readership on fire. I remember an early Loveswept by a new author named Iris Johansen. It was called TEMPEST AT SEA, Loveswept #17. With a stowaway heroine, a trip to Mexico, a cockfight and an original hard-assed hero, Ms. Johansen was clearly ahead of her time.

It wasn’t until I went to college that I found out I wasn’t suppose to like “those books.” I dutifully switched to other genres, both popular fiction and literary. But something was always missing. Maybe it was just me, but the other novels read just like romance novels, but without the romance.

I switched back, happily discovering such authors as Susan Elizabeth Phillips, LaVyrle Spencer and Elizabeth Lowell. I discovered I was right. Romance novels are exactly like other novels, but they have a great romance story to go along with the regular plot. Anybody out there read THE DIAMOND TIGER? I think I read it three times–mystery, intrigue, betrayal and action across three continents. Kudos to Elizabeth Lowell.

Excited and enthusiastic, I started writing my own romance stories. But after a few years, and a few manuscripts, I’d pretty much given up on being able to sell. But then I picked up a book called ANNIE’S WILD RIDE by Alina Adams. What a wild ride it was! The dialogue, the raw conflicts, the danger, the emotion. This was exactly what I wanted to write.

I quite literally finished the last page, put down the book and crossed the room to my word processor. There I wrote the first line of the first page of chapter one of a story called AFTER THE KISS. It won the Golden Heart and started what would turn out to be my own professional writing career.

So, a big thank you to romance authors past and present for the joy and inspiration you’ve given me and so many others. Many years after summer camp, I still adore the genre. I now looked forward to releases from such great contemporary authors as Jennifer Crusie, Janet Evanovich and, as always, Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

Barbara

Hi, everyone

I had a great time at a bar last weekend. Surprisingly, it was with the presenters from the Yukon Young Authors Conference. I have to admit, since I was the only popular fiction author at the event, and since the other presenters were poets, playwrights and literary authors, I expected the conversation to take a turn for the sophisticated, perhaps even the pretentious.

Not at all. We had a great time sharing stories and swapping writing techniques.

The bar was in Haines Junction, a town of 450 people two hours west of Whitehorse and near the Alaska border. It sits at the edge of Kluane National Park–a magnificent wall of glacier choked mountains jutting into the sky. It’s home to Canada’s highest mountain, Mount Logan.

We had planned to go hiking, but the trail was slushy and muddy. After a quick discussion of the conditions, we adjourned to the Kluane Park Inn. The KPI is positively rich in ambiance and atmosphere. Okay, admittedly, some of the atmosphere was in the form of cigarette smoke. But the ladies room vestibule was lit with a pink light, and the men’s room was lit with blue. There was absolutely no danger of getting too drunk to read the sign and wandering into the wrong restroom.

What I liked the best was the wall décor–a moose, a caribou, a mountain goat and two musk ox. The people were friendly. The music was country. And our table wobbled until we fixed it with a discarded cigarette package. My hat is off to the poet in our crowd. Turns out he’s also a handyman.

We only had time for one drink. Then we adjourned to the convention center for dinner, readings, music and just about the friendliest, most hospitable people I have ever met.

If you’ve got time to click through, take a look at http://www.hainesjunctionyukon.com/ Click on Community then on the St. Elias Convention Center. Don’t forget to hit the image gallery.

This conference center is phenomenal for a town of 450. And the mountains outside are breathtaking. We were a week too early for the bakery, but I know it’s legendary in the north. If you get a chance, don’t miss it!

I’d like to send a big thank you to the town of Haines Junction for all their hospitality. I’ll go back there anytime!

Barbara

The news from the north this week is that it’s melting. April is shaping up–as it usually does–to be a slushy, ugly month. Today I’m trapped in my little log house by a quarter mile obstacle course that was once a driveway. It’s speckled with puddles, snow patches and mud bogs that’ll suck in a husky dog. Times like these remind me of the isolation of living in the bush, and the greater isolation of living in the Yukon.

Other writers are a long way from me. And that makes it doubly sweet when I get out to a conference. Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of traveling to New York, Chicago, Vancouver, Denver, Washington DC and Calgary to name a few. I’ve met some amazing writers, some of whom remain my good friends to this day.

My very first conference was in Victoria, British Columbia. Let me say, I cannot recommend that lovely city more highly. Our hotel was on the waterfront, mere blocks from the Parliament buildings and steps away from museums and magnificent historic buildings like the Empress Hotel. We stopped at the Empress for high tea one afternoon. It was gracious and delicious, the perfect backdrop for an intense discussion of the romance genre and writing in general.

I met two fellow Harlequin authors for the first time that weekend, Jane Porter and Carla Daum (C.J. Carmichael). Of course, none of us were Harlequin authors back then. It was 1997. We’d each written a couple of manuscripts, each received a number of rejections, and each of us were hoping for that phone call that would tell us we’d made our first sale.

There was nothing to distinguish us from the dozens of other hopeful romance writers attending the Singletree Conference. But somehow we found each other, and there was something about our friendship that clicked. Maybe we recognized a drive in each other, or maybe we recognized an intensity and determination. Whatever it was, we kept in touch, and we supported each other as, one by one, we won contests, sold manuscripts and became published authors. Our friendship remains. High tea has become a tradition, and we meet up every year at conferences and writers retreats.

These days, thanks to Jane and Carla, when I’m talking to aspiring authors, I strongly encourage them to seek out people at the same stage of their career. These are the people who truly feel your pain and your joy on the long journey. These are the friendships that endure.

I’ll be seeing both Jane and Carla at the RWA conference in Atlanta this summer, where I hope many more friendships will begin.

Barbara

Hi, Everyone

This is the weekend the Romance Writers of America announces the finalists in the RITA and Golden Heart contests for 2006. For those who may not have heard about them, the RITAs are the “Oscars” of the romance writing industry, and the Golden Heart is the premier contest for unpublished writers with romance manuscripts.

My good friend Jane Graves got the nod in the Short Contemporary category of the RITA this year. She’ll be my roommate in Atlanta and is one of the funniest women on the planet!

The excitement of this finalist weekend took me back to my first final in the Golden Heart contest in 1999. That was when I met Jane Graves (she also finaled in the GH that year), and it was hands-down one of the most exciting moments of my life—a close second to the birth of my children and my wedding.

I went on to win the Golden Heart in 1999, to final twice and win in 2000, and to final in the RITAs in 2003. Still, nothing quite beat the thrill of 1999. I changed from being one of many thousand aspiring authors to being one of only 63 who would have their pictures displayed at the RWA annual conference in Chicago, their name and title announced at the awards ceremony and, best of all, be read by acquiring editors from the major publishing houses.

I also sold my first novel at the 2000 RWA conference as a result of that contest–while visiting the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum–but that’s a whole other story.

Back to the 1999 Golden Heart. Of course, I immediately called my family and all my writing friends. And a few people stopped by after work. One friend brought champagne, and we all sat around laughing and celebrating.

It was nearly eight o’clock by the time the company left and I got a chance to start dinner for the family. While I was standing over the stove, my eleven year old daughter snuggled up beside me. She put her head on my shoulder, sighed sweetly and said, “Mom. I don’t think I want you to become a romance writer… If it means dinner is going to be late.”

Happily, she got over late dinners. In fact, when the family discovered there were actual advances and royalties involved in this hobby, they were completely on board for any and all sacrifices

The complete list of the RITA and Golden Heart finalists for 2006 can be found on the RWA web site. Congratulations to all of this year’s finalists!

Barbara
www.barbaradunlop.com

I’ve always wanted to write a column entitled “News of the North.” I live up in the Yukon Territory, where there are more bears than people and it snows six months of the year. It’s snowing now. In fact, it was thirty below last night. Very chilly for March.

But the reason I want to write News of the North isn’t to impress you with our heartiness–although we are a hearty crew up here. We take pride in surviving at fifty below. We show up for work, send the kids to school, and put the dogs outside no matter what the temperature. We also ski, snowmobile and dog mush in ridiculously chilly temperatures. And I’m sure you’re impressed by that.

But why I really want to write the column is because of something called “The Colorful Five Percent.” The north attracts an interesting kind of person, a person slightly off the mainstream, slightly independent, you might even say marching to the beat of a drummer only they can hear.
Any given day of the week, there are stories on the street and articles in our local newspaper that would stun and amaze Outsiders. Like the sasquatch sighting in Teslin last year. Now I know there are sasquatch sightings all over the world. But this one was unique. The people sighting the sasquatch actually found and turned in hair samples. Yes, the very first physical evidence of sasquatch life was obtained here in the Yukon and sent out to university research labs.

Or the time the meteor fell to earth. It was in the dead of winter, pitch dark outside, and the sky lit up like there was a nuclear explosion. Which I thought there was. For a few seconds there, I waited for the boom and the end of all life. Happily that didn’t happen. But one of our intrepid and hearty locals found fragments of the meteor. He didn’t touch them. He was too smart for that. He had the presence of mind to seal them in Ziplock bags and keep them frozen until they could be shipped, pristine to NASA, where I’m sure they’re still being studied.

And last week, we held our annual Rendezvous festival. This is where the whole town comes out on the streets in the bitter cold of February to go into collective denial and pretend winter is ending. Ha! Talk to me again in May. But we flock to see snowshoe can-can dancing, the flour packing contest, the hairy legs contest and cardboard toboggan races. Oh, and the dog-howling contest and chainsaw chuck are not to be missed! There’s something for the whole family.

Since this is a writing blog, I’m sure I should somehow segue into my writing career. Let’s just say the north is the perfect place to keep your perspective. After all, when there are wolves eating the neighborhood pets, it’s hard to stress over a few editorial revisions.

Hope you are all having a wonderful spring!

Barbara
www.barbaradunlop.com