Novel Matters and Between the Lines

I am so thrilled about this. May I humbly (or not so humbly) suggest that on this day your reading and writing adventure just got a tad more exciting.

The group blog I've been telling you about, Novel Matters, is finally live. This is the place where I will discuss the reading and writing of sumptuous fiction with six amazing authors, Bonnie Grove, Patti Hill, Latayne Scott, Sharon K. Souza, Debbie Fuller Thomas, and Jennifer Valent.

If you love to read great novels, I hope you'll check in with us for some ideas, and give us your thoughts as well. What makes a story irresistable to you?

If you're a writer, I hope you'll jump in, and help us explore ways of making the kind of fiction readers will return to again and again.

We plan to have fun with this, and we've got some great promotions planned, with amazing prizes. But first we're breaking the ice with a group interview, a series of questions we asked each other so we can all know what kind of minds are behind Novel Matters. It could get scary, though. Did you know Bonnie Grove gets her best ideas when she's soaking wet? Not to mention... well, you read all about it in her innaugeral post.

There's more. Novel Matters isn't the only great blog that has launched today. My fabulous agent, Janet Kobobel Grant, and her colleagues at the Books & Such Literary Agency, have started one of their own, titled Between the Lines. This blog promises to be the place every writer will turn to for wisdom and encouragement. Check out the first post, where Janet coins a new term that I love: newfangledness.