Busy Summer

 Aug 11 2021

Nearly mid August! Like so many others who are commenting on how fast this summer seems to have gone, I shake my head at the speed with which days are flying by! Maybe because for a lot of us, restrictions have been lifted, or eased enough, to finally allow gatherings, to attend events, or to travel. It feels as if we are either making up for lost time, or filling our calendars in the event these long awaited freedoms are curtailed again. COVID is far from over. 

As mentioned previously, Pam and I enjoyed a lovely three day retreat last month. And guess what? We have another one scheduled in two week’s time! We will be joining the other three members of our Genre5 Author Group for a few days of catching up, writing and discussion. All against the back drop of a lakefront cottage. Can’t wait.  Other than a back-yard, socially distanced meeting last summer, we five have not gathered together since the virus put all our lives on hold. Grateful to have had Zoom to stay in touch, but nothing beats face to face.

Speaking of faces, a long running joke among the five of us is our complete inability to take a group selfie. Yes, we’ve tried the stick – let’s just say there were technical issues. But I may have found the solution and all will be revealed at our next gathering.

 

Out of all our group selfie tries, this one successful effort, from three years ago, remains my favourite. 

In the meantime, both halves of Jamie Tremain have been busy. Pam’s social calendar is bursting at the seams! I’ve been enjoying family gatherings at long last. And optimistically hope we can celebrate Christmas in our usual fashion this year!

My fun this week was technical. My faithful laptop, which had been showing its age, finally succumbed, and I spent yesterday setting up its replacement. With the ‘cloud’ and other advances, this set up went faster than I expected and I’m now enjoying better speed and a few new features.  As well, I’m borderline anal when it comes to backing things up, which paid off big time this time around.

And as far as Jamie Tremain goes, we’re now working with our amazing cover designer, Jennifer Gibson, to start the process for Grant’s Crossing – Death on the Alder. We plan for a release date of October 1.

We’re also developing a newsletter – more details to come on both!

And a reminder about the contest we offered with the last post. It ends August 13!

We hope your summer has been going well.  If you’ve purchased a copy of Beholden to None, send us a picture and we’ll feature it! We love hearing from you, because after all, without readers, what is the point of writing a book?

Now I’d best get back to my turn with our next project: Grant’s Crossing – Resort to Murder.

 

Cheers!

Liz