Garden Witch Sold to Lost Boys Press!

To be honest, it’s been a long and sometimes discouraging slog getting to this point. Others might nod sagely and say it was just a 7-year cycle, but after dozens and dozens of rejections, I was contemplating giving up seeking traditional publishing when I crossed paths with Amy Collins last year. She’s been relentless, fabulous and resourceful. What a difference a real ally makes!

This is a huge breakthrough moment for me, and I’m moved to share it with you. 2025 may seem like a long way off, but there’s plenty to do before it arrives.

Onward!

In Love With Autumn

In Love with Autumn

When I was in my spring,
I didn’t care for autumn much.

The aspen would turn gold
for a week, letting you know
It was time to buckle down
for another hard winter.

Now that I’m in it, I’m falling
in love with autumn.
I see differently in its weightless
light, in this clear air.

Today I bask in soft forgiveness
of an effortless sun.

Today I’m given thankful calm
to savor my life in peace, far-reaching peace,
a balance of light and dark
that has its own sense of humor.

Today I feast on harvests of ripe fruit
grown all summer long from blossoms
that fell away in spring.
There are seeds in the fruit I eat.

I don’t believe in life eternal.
I know it, like bees know,
who fill cells with honey
for sisters they’ll never …

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Arrogance Without Context is Hubris

For months I’ve been working on a problem related to my current writing project, and this essay came out as a part of my conclusion: arrogance without context is hubris. Not exactly sure how the ideas will fit into the story, but they’ll be there, even if only in the foundations. I hope you find it interesting!

Toward the end of 2022, I moved to Málaga, Spain, for three months — a place first settled by the Phoenicians. I then moved to Montpellier, France, where the university was founded in 1200, and the botanical garden was established by Henry IV over 400 years ago. I’ve visited castles and palaces occupied by a succession of conquering armies; sat in their gardens and contemplated their fountains, admired the breathtaking craftsmanship of tile work and architectural detail.

In Málaga, as I steeped in the silent presence of a Roman theater …

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My Mandolin Miracle

Thanks to the startling generosity of complete strangers, I have my mandolin back! Here’s the story. It’s a story well worth telling, if you ask me. Which you didn’t, but I’m telling it anyway. I have to, because this chain of miracles needs to be celebrated by more than Bob and me.

On October 17th we flew into Málaga with a year’s worth of luggage — one large suitcase, a smaller suitcase, and a backpack each. Plus my mandolin.

At the taxi rank we got a driver whose car could carry everything, and we loaded up. I showed the driver the address of our AirBnB apartment, and off we went. In the flurry of paying the driver (in cash at his insistence) I didn’t check to make sure we had everything. My mandolin was still in the taxi, and he was gone before I realized it.

So we were met …

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Ruti’s Prayer wins first place in Queer Sci Fi Flash Fiction Contest!

And…. We have a winner!

Thank you all for subscribing to my website! Today Shaky Shergill in the UK won the scholarship to the August 18-21 First Ten Pages Bootcamp through a random draw supervised by my husband. It feels really good to support another author this way. Onward!

Paying It Forward…

I’m offering a full scholarship to a Writers Digest workshop.

I’ve just signed with a literary agent — again. First time around was pretty disappointing. This time, though, signing with Amy Collins of Talcott Notch Literary, it already feels very much like entering the dynamic, collaborative business relationship it’s supposed to be. We’re taking action, and I’m elated at the possibilities ahead.

I first made contact with Amy in March through a four-day workshop put on by Writers Digest University, called “First 10 Pages Bootcamp”, where she was one of the instructors.

The workshop, which costs $200 US, seemed to be the next step in my seemingly endless agent querying efforts — after all, if I’d queried dozens and dozens and dozens of agents with my first pages and no one had shown real interest, I had to find out if there was something in those pages …

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Olympic Medal Reality Check, 2016

“US Exceeds all Expectations in Rio” crows a headline here in the US today. Um, maybe not so much.

This is my second Summer Olympics to offer a different way of looking at Olympic glory.

This post is not a commentary or criticism of the training, dedication, sweat, pain, and success of the individual athletes themselves. Every bit of praise to them, each one, even if their post-competition behavior was reprehensible. Each one earned her/his right to compete in the Olympics through bone-deep commitment, and earned whatever victories they achieved. Good for them!

Instead, this post seeks to serve as antidote to the bombardment of chauvinistic posturing that overlaid the TV coverage. This country seemed to crow about their athletes’ medals as if the country somehow could claim the glory of its athletes. I don’t mind a little ego attachment: the Icelandic soccer team in the Euros created a phenomenon …

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Hello, I’m back, and so are two of my books!

It’s been a strange couple of years for all of us since I last posted: not just because of COVID, but more importantly, the profoundly destabilizing, disorienting force the pandemic has been in our culture.

What do I have to show for my two-year silence?

Well, without going into all the detail: life-threatening diagnoses, two life-changing surgeries for me and one for my hubby, writing a 120k word fantasy, traumatic estrangement from a beloved family member, finding a literary agent, parting ways from said agent, pulling my books from a dishonest publisher, getting said books ready for indie release, querying agents until I saw Query Tracker in my sleep, selling our house and moving, music lessons, radiation therapy, and diving into a new writing project that I’ve carried in my heart for years, and falling more deeply in love with my wonderful husband as we approach the 20-year mark in …

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The Problem of the Impossibly Broken Hero

While all of us love a good romance, I’ve come to the conclusion that we read them for different reasons. One reason is no better than another, but I’m going to suggest that it’s important for an author to be aware of what basic reason they seek to serve when setting out to write a romance. Through that authorial choice, we extend an invitation to a reader as to how we expect them to enter our story.

I’m not claiming to be encyclopedic about this, (so let’s assume my list is incomplete) but I’ve identified three primary emotional invitations to a romance reader—that is, three distinctly different reasons why a reader might want to read a romance starring two men. I’ll be brief about the first two, because I want to spend more time on the third.

Reader as Stand-in.

The first is the most obvious—the traditional romance invitation, inherited …

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Author Archives: Lloyd Meeker