Welcome Wednesday says hi to Liz Flaherty

Hello! I'm delighted to have a return guest in Liz Flaherty, an author I've got to know through our mutual Wild Rose Press publisher.


Liz has novels published by a number of publishers and is here to talk a little about her latest publishing contract.

I really love this photo of Liz- captured at just the perfect moment. 

So, over to Liz... 

FINDING MYSELF

            Just on occasion, I get a little…lost. That sounds goofy, even to me. I’m 63, for heaven’s sake, with GPS in my car and an atlas under the end table by my chair just in case I need to see where I’m going, and—oh, right, quit rambling. No, I don’t mean that kind of lost.

            I’m talking about being lost in publishing, which is changing so much and so fast there’s no possible way I can keep up, no matter how sophisticated the GPS in my car is. Sometimes, with self-publishing flourishing around me—and leaving me in its creative dust—and authors having to promote themselves more and more, I think as I did at my post office day job a few years back, It’s time for me to go.

            But most of the time, I am thrilled by where I am. Where publishing is. I remember—when I say these two words, my kids usually roll their eyes, so go ahead and do that. I’ll wait—when women’s fiction was an umbrella for mom lit, boomer lit, chick lit, all those lits. It covered girlfriends’ stories, on the road stories, and book club stories. There were a lot of them around, but they still drew snickers from ones who didn’t read or write them. Personally, I never got into chick lit—I was too old—but I was thrilled it was out there.

What’s cool about now—and I’m not really sure when it happened—is that, hey, guess what, all you gotta say is Women’s Fiction. (I like capitalizing it because I am just so happy it’s there.)

            Harlequin Heartwarming is a new imprint. Its stories are romances, but they—at least the ones I’ve read--have the definitive savory flavor of Women’s Fiction. The Big Five all offer Women’s Fiction stories. One of my publishers, The Wild Rose Press, recently started publishing Women’s Fiction titles, too. 

Soon, sometime in 2014, The Girls of Tonsil Lake, will be one of those titles. The Girls is my first Women’s Fiction book. I think defining the genre is very simple: it’s the woman’s journey. And what a journey the writing of this book was. I hope its readers experience it in the same way.

            I am excited. Truthfully, yes, I still get lost in publishing’s big, wide world. I feel as though my name is only one in such a big crowd that no one will ever see it. (Though I think they’ll see my cover. Isn’t it a nice one?) But lost is okay, because getting found again is one of those journeys I mentioned. And getting found reaffirms what I knew all the time, that it’s not time to go. Not yet.

***

The Girls of Tonsil Lake will be Liz’s eighth book, and it is no less thrilling than the first one was. Retired from the post office, she spends non-writing time sewing, quilting, and doing whatever else she wants to. She and Duane live in the old farmhouse in Indiana they moved to in 1977. They’ve talked about moving, but really…36 years’ worth of stuff? It’s not happening!

She’d love to hear from you at lizkflaherty@gmail.com or please come and see her at:

http://lizflaherty.com

http://www.facebook.com/lizkflaherty

https://twitter.com/LizFlaherty1

http://wordwranglers.blogspot.com/

My huge congratulations on achieving your contract with Harlequin, Liz!  And no, right now doesn't seem like the time for you to find another outlet for your skills.

Liz is sharing a little peek at her novel with us today!

I wanted Andie to come to New York, but she didn’t feel up to it. I felt a little shudder go through me when she said that. Andie’s always been so strong, and she’s cancer-free, so I found it startling and frightening when she admitted to feeling less than wonderful. But, as Let There Be Hope shows, cancer changes one in sometimes indefinable ways. Maybe this is one of those changes.

            Mark and I took a trip to Maine once in our early days. We visited some islands off its coast and I was so enthralled that he bought me a house on one of them, a little strip of green called, appropriately enough, Hope Island. It reminds me of Bennett’s Island, the fictitious utopia of Elisabeth Ogilvie’s books, except that Hope has all the “mod cons,” and I love to go there.

It is a place I can be myself with little regard to what anyone else thinks. I sit on the wraparound porch of the Victorian horror that is my house in my bathrobe and drink coffee with Lucas Bishop, our neighbor. I read Jean’s books without worrying that someone will see the covers.

I’ve never taken anyone else—it was Mark’s and my private getaway—but I wouldn’t mind if it was Andie who was there. Or Jean and even Suzanne. Andie and I could work on her book, Jean could cook and keep house since she’s so crazy about doing that, and maybe even spin out one of her romances placed on an island, and Suzanne could . . . do our hair or something.

We would all be together as we are that single night every year when we drive to the lake and pretend we’re facing down our ghosts. I am a little afraid that the day will come that we’ll have to face them down for real.

I wonder if they’d come. 

Best wishes with all of your writing, and thank you for coming to share your news, Liz. 

Slainthe!