Well, the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention in Columbus, Ohio, is coming up fast (April 28-May 2). A number of Siren-Bookstrand authors will be there, taking in the scene, meeting people and just having fun in general.

If you’re going to RT, here’s an added perk: You have a chance to win a fabulous basket of goodies! Entering to win is easy. All you have to do is find the gift basket from the Siren-Bookstrand Authors in Club RT and fill out the small tickie with your name and contact vitals. The winner’s name will be drawn Saturday. So just what will you win? How about this:

• A $50 gift certificate from Siren-Bookstrand Inc.
• A bag of Ghirardelli chocolates from Emma Wildes
• A funky necklace, from Raina James
• A hand-crafted scarf created by author Mary Lou George
• Angel and the Lawman, by Barbara W. Starmer
• Believing is Seeing, by Corinne Davies
• Blind Date After Dark Series (collection of Mr. Right, The Perfect Tool and The Mistletoe Mistake), by Lara Santiago
• Captured, by Julia Rachel Barrett *
• Cowboy Love, by Sandy Sullivan
• Badlands (collection of Mail Order Bride for Two, Two Wanted Men and Double Chance Claim), by Elle Saint James
• Drawing Blood, by Mary Lou George
• Forbidden Heart, by Kara Wills
• The Jewel Box, Three Tales of Erotic Romance (collection of Three For All, Sinful and The Family Jewel), by Raina James
• The Lady Makes Three, by Morgan Ashbury
• Magic & Love collection, by Morgan Ashbury
• Pale Stars in Her Eyes, The Starlight Chronicles 1, by Annabel Wolfe
• Rogue's Run, Galactic Gunslingers 1, by Lara Santiago
• Shadow Hunter, by Kara Wills
• Undercover Lover, by Jane Leopold Quinn
• Watcher, Sexual Studies 1, by Kate Watterson

* denotes ebook download; all others are trade paperback editions

The books in the basket cover the gamut of genres, from thrillers, westerns and contemporaries to scifi, paranormals and fantasies. There's sure to be something in there to please everyone. So don’t be shy -- fill out the ticket in Club RT to enter the draw for our basket, and come meet us at the book fairs, both Wednesday and Saturday, and at our table in Club RT. See you in Columbus!

Labels: Club RT, gift basket, prizes, Romantic Times Booklovers Convention, Siren-Bookstrand

There can be no doubt whatsoever that spring has sprung. This is not to say that we might not still get a few cold days, or even a dumping of snow. This is southern Ontario, after all, and I’m old enough to remember snow in May.

I know it’s spring because each morning, just before dawn, I hear birds singing, and they are birds I only hear once spring has arrived and they sound so beautiful! What kind of birds are they, you ask? They’re ... singing birds.

I know it’s spring because the lawns are all growing. Ours is green and, yes, in need of being cut already. Mr. Ashbury isn’t the fan of outdoor work he used to be. He tells me he’s getting too old to cut the grass, so I may have to revert to hiring either a grandson, or a service.

I know it’s spring, because down at the place where I bought my winter tires, they have a sign that advises motorists to “get summer tires now!” I guess I will, in a few more weeks. Like I said, I can remember snow in May.

I know it’s spring because all through the neighbourhood, green shoots are spearing up in gardens, and some lucky residents already have blossoms of crocus and daffodils and narcissus. Notice I said “some lucky residents.” Sadly, my gardens remain barren.

In the fall, my daughter and three of my grandchildren planted bulbs. I know they did, because I was on the porch supervising them. They planted all the above mentioned flowers, and tulips, too.

One of the things I love most about spring is the flowers. When we lived out in the country, in the house that had been my mother’s I didn’t need to worry about spring flowers, for they came up in abundance. We had daffodils and narcissi. We had crocus and grape hyacinth. We had tulips, and lily of the valley! And then, just as those blooms began to fade, we had lilac.

Some days when the breeze was blowing in the right direction, wonderful fragrance filled the air, and my house. It’s been several years since I’ve had spring flowers of my own.

I had great hopes for this spring. I had purchased several boxes of bulbs, and watched as they were planted. But alas, so far, nothing is poking out of the ground.

I would have preferred to have planted the bulbs myself. Unfortunately, my yard is so uneven that manoeuvring over it is difficult. About the only way I can manage, as I would to weed flowers in the summer, is to lie down on the grass and kind of inch myself along, like a worm. Not a problem, and actually I kind of enjoy myself when I do the weeding. But that inch-worm imitation isn’t something to do in the late fall when the ground is cold and wet.

I doubt that planting the bulbs myself would have made a difference, anyway. This doesn’t really surprise me. Sometimes, I can have the worst luck getting simple things to work out. I also bought a raft of bulbs that I thought would go well in the squared off “garden” my beloved had made for himself a few years ago. I envisioned having a “cutting garden” and imagined my house continually blessed with vases of fresh flowers set about here and there throughout the spring. Unfortunately, the sod would have had to have been turned (I did say the garden had been made a few years ago), and no one was interested in that job. Those bulbs sit in my basement, unloved and unused.

My determination to have at least some spring flowers is strong, and I think I know one way I might still be able accomplish this. I think I’m going to head to the garden center and buy already blooming tulips, daffodils and whatever else I can find in pots (my absolute favourites are the white narcissuses that have the red and yellow accents). Then I can plant them, not in what would have been my cutting garden, but at least in the garden that borders the house itself.

As I was considering this situation, I couldn’t help but recall how a dear friend of mine, now departed from this life, solved a similar dilemma for his wife one spring.

He went to the dollar store, bought plastic flowers, and jammed the stems into the ground. She came home to what appeared to be a profusion of colourful flowers — until she got close, that is.

I’ve never told Mr. Ashbury about this. I don’t want to give him any ideas.

Love,

Morgan

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

Labels: flowers, Morgan Ashbury, planting, spring, Wednesday's Words

I have a question. Why is it only women have the guilt gene?

You may know that I have as much respect for men as I do for women. I came out of the '60s and '70s without any feminist overtones to my personality. Sure, I might make a joke from time to time about women who seek parity with men lacking ambition, but I don’t really mean it.

Men and women are different is so many ways. The best of us complement each other, and I believe that is why we each have been designed the way we have by the Original Manufacturer. I do believe men and women are equals; but they are different.

For the most part I celebrate those differences. The only real imbalance, it would seem to me, is that women got an overabundance of the guilt gene, and the men, none at all.

If you’re a man, and you awaken early on a Saturday morning, and emerge from your bedroom to a home that is in dire need of tidying and cleaning, chances are you will have no difficulty stepping over the mess to get to your coffee. You might eventually raise yourself up to set things to rights, but in your own good time.

If you’re a woman facing the same scenario, you will begin to tidy on your way to the bathroom, no matter how badly you need those facilities. Coffee will be a cherished goal for you, a reward to be collected once the job at hand is done.

If you’re a man, and the wind has come in the night and toppled the umbrella you thought imbedded securely to prevent toppling, blowing it dangerously close to where it might sink out of your life forever, you might have no trouble whatsoever shrugging your shoulders and carrying on to your golf game with a clear conscience.

If you’re a woman, you’d waste a lot of energy and worry on trying to figure out how to rescue that umbrella, and feel guilty as hell when you realize you simply don’t have the strength to do so.

We women tend to feel guilty if we do anything for ourselves that could even remotely be considered selfish. But that’s not the worst of it. We feel guilty for working, and we feel guilty if we don’t work. We feel guilty if we do too much for our kids, and we feel guilty if we don’t do enough.

Most women seem to excel at taking care of others all the time. What causes this great giving of the female soul? It’s guilt, to some degree. We seem to be the ones who feel it is, not only our sacred obligation, but our destiny to take care of others.

Society does play into this, I assure you of that. Women don’t drive the engine on this particular vehicle all by themselves. Don’t believe me?

Have you ever gone to visit people—I’m thinking people you don’t know well. You find yourself in their homes for the first time and the place is a mess. Been there? I challenge you to deny that the thought that went through your head was, “Gee, this woman isn’t a very good housekeeper.”

It could very well be, as one former acquaintance once said to me, that women like to feel guilty. Feelings of guilt, this person said, morphed into feelings of righteousness, and women live to feel righteous.

I’m not sure if I totally agree with that, or not. The unfortunate part is that I have known women who are like that, which kind of works against us all.

Now, I’m not for changing the roles between men and women, overmuch. I love the maleness of men, their strengths, which do come with their weaknesses, as do ours. I’m not asking for any kind of cultural or social revolution, and I for one certainly don’t want to burn my bra.

But if we could shave, oh, about a quarter inch of guilt off of us and put it on the men—why, I think that would be a fine thing, indeed.

Love,
Morgan

Feed the flames of your passion…with a novel by Morgan Ashbury

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

Labels: guilt, men, Morgan Ashbury, sexes, women

As spring begins to settle over the countryside, I begin to look forward to my traditional journey to the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention, this year being held in beautiful Columbus, Ohio.

This will be my fifth consecutive convention, and I feel very fortunate that I’ve been able to go each year. The purpose, of course, is in support of my career as an author; but it’s not all work for me.

Once again my beloved has decided not to accompany me, so I’ll be traveling with my good friend and fellow Siren-Bookstrand author, Raina James, and one other Canadian, a New York Times-bestselling author known to us both. Since Columbus isn’t overly far, we’ll be traveling by car.

I’m looking forward to getting together with old friends as well as meeting new ones. There’s something about being in the company of readers and authors that I find very exhilarating. It simply gives me goose bumps when someone comes up to me and says they have read one of my books, or that they always read this essay. That’s everything, isn’t it? Oh, yes, it’s nice to make some money, but for me by far the greatest perk to being published is knowing that people read my words.

I revel in the company of fellow authors. No one understands the writer like another writer. Again, I feel very blessed because I have a small, tightly knit circle of friends in this community. Spending time with them is the absolute highlight of any convention, and I consider the friendships I have with them to be one of my greatest treasures. I simply cannot imagine my life without them.

As you know, I have discovered, sadly, that I’m not a party animal. However, I do manage to party it up a little at these conventions. I’m not much of a drinker. I can tell you that I always have some form of libation on hand here at home. I can also tell you that those bottles have dust on them. Once in a while I like a drink, but often, just having it on hand is enough.

I’ll be attending the two book signings again this year. The convention features an “e-book fair” on the Wednesday, and a regular book fair on Saturday. Most of my titles are now available in print. The only exceptions are Reckless Abandon and Brazen Seduction, and they will be available, together in one volume, later in the year.

I’ll also be spending a fair bit of time at Club RT. If you happen to be going to the Convention, I’d be thrilled if you looked me up there. I’ll be easy to find. I’ll be at the Siren-Bookstrand table.

I’m glad we’ll be traveling by car this year. Inevitably, when I attend this gathering, as well as the Romance Writers of America National Conference, I end up with a lot of books. Some are free, but some I buy. And I don’t ever get rid of books. I consider them my friends. The only exception to this rule would be if I end up with two copies of the same novel. Then I usually give the extra one to my daughter.

One of these days I’ll have a completed library, at which time I will unbox all my books and set them about. Of course, being anal, I will have to have them in alphabetical order (by author name). Prior to doing this I may hold a contest, asking for guesses as to how many books I have in my collection (and, yes, of course I am going to count them). The last time my daughter and I counted them, it was a good five or six years ago and the number reached was around three thousand.

One view is that I am, perhaps, a bit of a packrat. The other, of course, is that I never turn my back on a friend.

Love,
Morgan

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

Labels: authors, Club RT, friends, Morgan Ashbury, Romantic Times Booklovers Convention, travel, Wednesday's Words

I’m grateful for a lot of things in my life.

I’m grateful to have a roof over my head, clothes in my closet, and food on my table. I’m grateful that in the last few years, I have been able to write, and have my work published, and read by thousands.

I’m grateful to be in a family of smart-asses.

Our second daughter had moved to a city nearly an hour away, and so we haven’t been getting together as often as we all would like. From the first day she came into our lives, the one thing she has really loved was “family dinner.” She’s a nurse now as well as living an hour away, and it’s not easy to plan a time to gather for this ritual. But finally, this past Sunday, we enjoyed a family dinner.

I planned simple fare—roast beef, potatoes and gravy, broccoli—and how wonderful it was to have the table full, with conversation and laughter.

And how wonderful that the girls—our daughter and our second daughter—got up to do the dishes afterward. And that is when I recalled that I live in a family of smart-asses.

“Now remember, stack the plates symmetrically.” That was my daughter and I did not for one moment think my constant teaching was finally bearing fruit. I recognize sarcasm when I hear it.

“So, symmetrical … what does that mean, exactly? Is one woman’s symmetrical another’s … hmm, what is the opposite of symmetrical?” My second daughter posed this question as she dried the plates, both ladies talking like I wasn’t right there listening.

I didn’t rise to the bait of the teasing tone, neither did I respond “asymmetrical” to the question of opposites, and I think I should get credit for that.

“How’s this?” My second daughter stacked the plates, the smallest on the bottom, the largest in the middle and then waited for my reaction.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“Sure, you say that, but if I put them away that way you’d freak.” And then she smiled.

I wouldn’t have freaked, but I might have said something. Maybe. Probably.

Beside my keyboard is a pen that has four colors of ink. I have a quaint habit. I take an index card when I am writing, and put the title of my work-in-progress at the top, and then I list each chapter and the page numbers and the number of words, and then I have a running total of words written for the novel. Chapter numbers I write in black ink, the running total in red. Yes, I know that it’s anal. I am anal. It works for me.

My fifteen-year-old grandson came into the kitchen with this pen in his hand.

“Honey, put the pen down, please. I need it.”

Second daughter picked up the pen and shook it at him. “What were you thinking? This is a pen! A pen is not for the fingers of teenagers! A pen is to be respected, revered and treated with care. A pen is to be cherished! I mean, yes, a pen is just a pen to some, but to others it could be symmetrical!”

I looked at second daughter and shook my head. “You really fit into this family,” I said.

She smiled. “I think so, too.”

Yep, a family of smart-asses. Kind of brings tears of pride to my eyes.

Love,
Morgan

http://www.bookstrand.com/brazen-seduction

Labels: families, laughter, Morgan Ashbury, togetherness, Wednesday's Words

I can still recall one time when my mother lamented that she used to enjoy going out and about to exhibitions and fairs or just shopping, but that she couldn’t anymore because her arthritis had become too severe, and she couldn’t walk very well or for very long. I don’t think I was much more than fifteen at the time. I told her that if she wanted to go to the exhibition (Canadian National Exhibition in late August) or anyplace else, that we could go and rent a wheelchair and I would gladly push her wherever she wanted—that her lack of mobility didn’t have to mean doing without those outside entertainments.

Mother was horrified. I believe it was one of the few times she actually sputtered. She said that she would never be seen in a wheelchair being pushed about by her daughter as if she was disabled, and how could I even suggest such a thing! Her reaction confused me at the time, for I’d always known her to be a logical woman, and this reaction, I believed, was totally illogical.

Flash forward about thirty-five years, and I’ll preface the rest of this essay by saying that I have learned that sometimes earlier incidents rise up to bite us in the butt.

Like my mother, I suffer from severe osteoarthritis. I believe I’ve mentioned before that I need a cane to walk. This condition isn’t getting better, and actually became worse this past summer when I fell while on vacation.

Recently I applied for and received an “accessible parking permit.” This permit allows me to park my car in the designated handicapped spots here in Ontario. I’m not sure if I can use it when I travel to the United States, or not. That’s something I shall have to look into.

The reaction of every member of my family to the news of my having obtained this new car accessory is, “Well, it’s about time!” Even some of my beloved’s co-workers have had the same reaction.

I think I understand my mother, now.

I’m not sure if I can adequately explain to you the combination of relief and sorrow this permit represents for me. On the one hand, I can park closer to the entrances of stores and restaurants. Sometimes, that can be a huge blessing, especially during busy times in very big parking lots.

Those who can walk mostly don’t think there could possibly be a downside to such a tool. But there is. Applying for that permit meant I was admitting to myself that I’m not ever going to walk unassisted again. Yes, I know, at least I can walk, and I’m usually the first one to count my blessings. But to a certain degree everything is relative. I can walk very short distances at a very slow pace. But I can’t run. I can’t dance. I can’t go on hikes, or climb trails. I can’t go for walks along the beach, or anywhere else, for that matter. But in my mind, until recently, a part of me hoped that I would, one day. Applying for that permit felt like giving up all hope.

That same psychology, for me, applies to my getting a scooter. I know I need one. Especially if I want to continue to go to conferences like RT and the RWA Nationals. The companies that make the scooters and power chairs advertise their service as a giving back of independence, and I suppose in a way they do; but they only give independence from other people. You’re still dependent on the machine, which in my mind and in my heart feels like dependence, period.

I know that if the choice is between using a scooter to do and see, or not doing and seeing, then a scooter is in my future. And I know, that in time, I’ll adjust completely and even be glad I decided to “get on with it.”

But in the meantime I’m reminded that what may be a blessing in one person’s eyes isn’t necessarily the same to another. And I’m reminded, too, that whatever my opinion of another’s circumstance may be, I need to forget my opinion and pay attention, instead, to their feelings.

Love,

Morgan

http://www.bookstrand.com/brazen-seduction

Labels: challenges, daughters, disability, Morgan Ashbury, mothers, Wednesday's Words, wheelchair

Labels: artists, challenges, disability, life, MFPA, Morgan Ashbury, Mouth and Foot Painting Artists, Wednesday's Words