It seems like it has been a lifetime since we 8 Ladies finished up the McDaniel Romance Writing program and started up this blog. We’ve got over 2,000 posts under our collective belts and hundreds of thousands of words on the page, so I thought now would be a good time to step back and celebrate some achievements.
Many of us have had the thrill of seeing our names listed at one time or another in the RWA Romance Writers Report – winners of various chapter contests – and we were delighted to watch one of our own accept a Golden Heart™ award in New York in 2015.
If you’ve been reading the blog for any length of time, you’ll have noticed that there is currently a flurry of book-finishing, marketing, and publishing going on. 2019 is shaping up to be a busy, busy year.
Here are just some of the highlights:
Jilly Wood
The first “8 Ladies” book I purchased after we started blogging here was the anthology Stories for Home, featuring Jilly’s short story Home Advantage. Not only did the anthology have a wide-range of entertaining stories, but all proceeds from the sale of the book went to the UK housing charity Shelter.
On Wednesday, we’ll be cheering on Jilly over at the Ruby-Slippered Sisterhood blog where, as one of this year’s Golden Heart™ finalists, she’ll be guest posting about her nominated story The Transformation of Alexis Doe and the prequel she’s planning to publish first—The Seeds of Power (otherwise known as Christal’s book).
Head on over and check it out, if you get the chance. Other finalists will be posting there over the next few weeks as well.
Kay Keppler
Kay, who has been stellar in our Friday Writing Sprints in recent months, has a number of books out (you can see them on her Amazon author page). I read Kay’s Loving Lucy just the other day. It left me with a smile on my face and a hankering for a cow-shaped timer that mooed. As a bonus, it was set in my local area, so I recognized exactly where things were happening and felt very connected to the story. Next up is Betting on Hope, with its sunshine-yellow cover that makes me happy just looking at it. Of course what I’d really like to be reading next is her FBI series – hint, hint.
Jeanne Estridge
Jeanne was our first Golden Heart™ winner (2015) here on the blog. The first book in her Touched by a Demon series was published in September 2018, with book 2 following in early 2019. I’m looking forward to book 3 – The Demon Wore Stilettos – which is due out later this year. She’s also recently completed work on Girl’s Best Friend, a Contemporary romance set in the mythical village of Russet Springs, as she mentioned in her post yesterday. I’m hoping we hear more about that soon.
Nancy Yeager
As you’ve probably seen on her “Accountability” posts, Nancy is busy writing and publishing her Harrow’s Finest Five series. This past Saturday she was over at the Coffee Time Romance page discussing One Kiss from Ruin, the second book (but first full-length novel!) in the series. If you are on Facebook, you can follow her there for lots of fun promotions as well as up-to-date information on her books.
Fridays
If you’re looking for a little short-story instant gratification, make sure to check out our Friday Writing Sprints. Michaeline has a great story that has been progressing over the past few weeks and I’m looking forward to reading the next installment this week. You can also search our blog for “short stories” to catch up on the short-story-week entries we’ve posted throughout the years.
It’s great to look back and see just how much the collective 8 Ladies have accomplished since we started this blog. I can’t wait to see what’s next!
Eight Ladies Writing 
Somewhere along the line, I missed the fact that Jilly published a short story. Just popped out and bought the anthology (thanks for the link!) and plan to treat myself to a read later today!
And doesn’t her fantasy series sound fascinating?!
Happy reading, Jeanne. Hope you enjoy the stories. And yes, her fantasy series does sound great.
Thanks, ladies, for joining me on the Ruby Slippered Sisterhood blog today. I had a blast! And thank you, Jeanne, for buying the Stories for Homes anthology. It’s in support of a good cause, and my short story is a fun summer read. I hope you enjoy it!
This is such a great post, Elizabeth. I love that we work so well together as a group and that we have so much to celebrate. I look forward to checking our blog every day to find out what’s new with the other Ladies. I can’t wait to see what we all get up to next!
Thanks for the shout out, Elizabeth! Sometimes when we get caught up in our slog, it’s nice to look back and see where we started. I hope soon we’ll see a title of yours on Amazon to purchase, as well.
Unless Amazon is going to pull the words directly out of my head and on to the page during one of their trips here dropping of things I’ve ordered in the middle of the night, that might be a bit of a wait, Kay. LOL!
But yes, it is nice to see what has been accomplished during our time here. I can be hard to see the big picture when we’re focused on daily posts.
p.s. Hope the recovery is going wonderfully.
What a great celebration! It’s easy to forget all the stuff we’ve done in the past few years, especially when battling procrastination (it seems like NOTHING gets done, even though we do make small steps forward). Thanks for putting this together!