WE DID IT!

Almost two years ago, Kathy and I discussed publishing an
anthology of short stories similar to the anthology published by the Northern
Lights Romance Writers group a few years prior. Most people we talked to probably
thought it would never happen. But, Kathy and I are persistent in bringing our
ideas to fruition. We have been great co-conspirators in taking on this enormous
adventure of starting a new romance writers group south of the river—Romancing the Lakes Romance Writers, putting a new writing contest out to the members of Romance Writers of America—Romancing the Lakes of Minnesota Writing Contest, premiering a new annual conference at Mystic Lakes Casino—The Road to Publishing, and last but not least releasing our anthology—Romancing the Lakes of Minnesota—Summer. This anthology is the first in the Romancing the Lakes of Minnesota series Romancing the Lakes of
Minnesota—Autumn, to be released in the fall of 2014.

It’s been a long journey since last September when we first
put out the call for RTL (Romancing the
Lakes Romance Writers) members to submit short stories between 5-10,000
words. The stories needed to be set on a Minnesota lake and contain a love
story.  The weeks flew by as everyone worked hard to get their stories finished and turned in on time. Then, of
course, came the tedious job of revision after revision. You can probably never
have enough revisions as we all strived to make our stories as perfect as they
could be.

Finding the perfect photo for our cover wasn’t as easy as we
thought in the planning stages, but with the help of one of our members, Christopher
Palm, who is a graphic artist, the perfect picture was found. The sunset
picture could easily take place on any of the lakes in our stories and our
names could be drawn on the shoreline of any of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes. It
was a perfect fit! Also, having our own graphic artist allowed us to come up
with our very own logo for Romancing the Lakes Romance Writers, which enhances the anthology’s beautiful back cover. 

Seeing our writing in print has been a dream come true. For
some, it has been a dream for many years and for others perhaps only a few. But
for all of us, it has been very exciting to finally see this book in
print. 
Congratulations to all the anthology authors and thanks for all your hard work and persistence
in making this dream a reality!  Also, a huge thank you to Christopher for all his time and expertise on designing the cover and back for the anthology and creating a logo for Romancing the Lakes Romance Writers.