Golden Hearts and Playground Parts

The Writer's Playground is a group of 20 women who came together three years ago in the spirit of fun and encouragement. We were a motley crew of diverse styles and genres :), but we cheered each other on, encouraged, nagged, and inspired (the hunks were for entertainment purposes only. Really). Tawny's naughty and Tammy's sweet, Marlene is nurturing and Betty's bawdy, Sheila's a whipcracker and Kimmi's a firecracker... we all have our parts to play, and considering how far apart we are in locations and personalities, those parts add up to a pretty amazing whole. It's truly astounding how far we've come together, and, oh my... what fun we've had while doing it!

Over the past three years our little group has seen some incredible successes: eight of us have gone on to become published, eleven have finaled in the prestigious Golden Heart contest (a total of nineteen times!). One Golden Heart winner, one American Title contest winner, and more smaller contest wins among us than I can possibly count! We must be doing something right, hm?

Plus, we have great fun at conferences! :)

But today I want to give a special shout-out and a huge HOORAY! to my friends Beth Burgoon, Kim Duffy, Carla Hughes, Sheila Mohs, and Anna Sugden for finaling in this year's Golden Heart contest! Anna and Beth will battle it out (once again) in the Long Contemporary category with MORTGAGED HEARTS and ALL OR NOTHING; Sheila finaled in Paranormal with her sexy pirate story, TIME TREASURE; Kim Duffy (writing as Lindsey Brookes) has broken through the GH barrier with her fun Young Adult, MY BEST FRIEND'S A REAL DOG; and Carla has finaled in the Inspirational category with her Roman historical, TO LOVE A GLADIATOR.

I'm so proud of them all, and can't wait to cheer them on at the RWA national conference in Dallas this coming July. You can bet we'll have a wild night, win or lose. These women are all winners in my book!