Spending time selling books in person is always a blast. For this spring, I have the following appearances in Waterloo Region. (Most recent listed up top.)

Saturday, May 31, 2025: Waterloo Bookfest

Outside in spring weather? Check! LOADS of books to peruse a buy? Check!

This marks my fourth year participating in Waterloo Bookfest, co-organized this year by Grand River Writers and KW Writers Alliance. I'll have all my books with me. Drop by to say hi, pick up the next book in the series you're reading, have me sign books you've already purchased, or talk about my current works in progress. I love meeting new readers.

My mentor, Heather Wright, will be selling her writing guides. She's helped shape me into the writer I am today. I highly recommend popping by to pick up a little writing help. You can also buy her how-to-write books online at Etsy.

You'll find me and all my fellow writers at Waterloo Public Square from 2-8PM. 

Thursday, May 29, 2025: Waterloo Public Library

Waterloo Public Library main branch is hosting a local author event, where authors from Waterloo Region will showcase up to three of their own books. Ample free parking is available on site, and bus riders can access the library via GRT route 7 or LRT.

I'll have the first book of Between Worlds and the first two books of Love on Belmont with me.

Saturday, April 12, 2025: Heffner Spring Show

Spending the afternoon at the family business that has helped me so much in life is always a blast. I’ll have both series with me: Between Worlds and Love on Belmont. I'll also have my sale bin with me, where many previous prints are $5 each.

Other vendors include Scentsy, Live Forward Apparel, Inspired Cardz by Jacqueline, Sylvie Stamps, and many more! Full list of vendors is avaialble here.

Time: 10AM–3PM

Address: Heffner Toyota building, 3131 King St. E., Kitchener, ON

Saturday, March 29, 2025: Indigo Kitchener

Once again, I’ll be at Indigo’s by Fairview Mall! The focus this time will be Love on Belmont. The fourth book is in the works, and if all goes well, it’ll be out by Christmas. So…if you’re lagging behind on the series, or want to grab signed copies for a friend or family member, drop by!

And, as always, if you bought your books elsewhere, even on Amazon, and would like them signed, do drop by. I love getting to know readers in person.

Time: 12PM–4PM

Address: Indigo Kitchener, 225 Fairway Rd S Unit CRU-04, Kitchener, ON

I hope to see you out this spring!

I started questioning the existence of God when I was a teen. Growing up in Catholic and Anglican schools showed me what believing in God might look like. But over time, I read books on other possibilities. Other religions, philosophy, and general spirituality showed me that believing in God—if one believed in such a being—had difference faces. With my first young adult series, Between Worlds, I wanted to offer young readers a chance to explore their spirituality in the privacy of a young adult series of books.

What Does Spiritual Journey Mean to the Reader?

You may associate “spiritual” with a belief in one or (many) more higher powers, whether a god, many gods, or many spirits.

The generally accepted opposite of “spiritual” is often “empirical,” i.e., a belief in science, which does not support a belief in an unproven higher power.

As a teen, I was torn between both: raised Catholic, but attending school in Ontario, I thought both sides conflicted with one another.

I’ve since learned that spirituality can mean many things and need not exclude science.

What Spiritual Means to Me

Spirituality is an abstract concept: We can neither hold it nor see it, hear it nor taste it nor smell it.

Yet it still exists. How? Why?

Humans cannot live alone, despite what many may wish to believe. Someone makes our clothes. In most cases, someone grows our food. How clean our air is depends on how clean our neighbours—whether directly beside us or on the other side of a border—keep their air.

The noise or silence we experience is connected to others, too.

How do we honour these connections? How do we feel about them? How do we become a part of them?

There’s no one answer to these questions. That’s why I created a series with two teenaged girls whose spiritual lives differ vastly from one another.

Elisabeth’s Spiritual Journey

In Between Worlds, Elisabeth’s journey is perhaps the more expected one. She navigates her beliefs and relationships, seeking to understand where Jesus is present in her life. Whom should she turn to for guidance? Jesus, God, her parents, the minister, or her own heart?

Elisabeth cannot fathom a world without a god, even as she tries to reconcile how a loving god could allow what eventually became known as World War I to happen.

For Elisabeth, following her Lutheran faith means both following the rules and participating in the community:

·      Church called everyone together once a week.

·      Social traditions formed out of aspects of religious life.

·      Life’s greatest moments, from birth to death, were celebrated together.

Believing in God meant both following a moral compass to get into heaven and learning how to co-exist with one another. Many of us today may not agree with some of the rules that were imposed on Elisabeth’s’ community for this coexistence to happen, but it happened nonetheless.

Juliana’s Spiritual Journey

If spirituality is about connecting with others while developing a deeper relationship with yourself, then dance is that spiritual journey for Juliana. Indeed, the first novel ends with her dancing as she gathers courage to tackle this latest chapter in her life.

Many adults today will shy away from dancing: “Oh, no, thank you. I’m going to sit down. I can’t dance.”

However, dance is community. What’s a wedding without dancing? Teenaged life without the high school dance? Rock concerts without dancers onstage? Some forms of theatre without dance?

Dance, for Juliana, takes that to a different level. As a teenager in love with dance—especially the percussion form that is tap dance—she finds connection with those around her. The transition to a new dance studio presents many problems for Juliana, including not understanding the social rules of this new group.

Juliana doesn’t pray in the religious sense of the word. Instead, she tries to deepen her relationship with herself and find answers to her problems through dance.

Spirituality Your Own Way

Most youth will embark on some kind of spiritual journey. It may only begin in their pre-teen years and take decades to conclude. Or perhaps they learn in those younger years that what they have always believed is what provides them the strength to continue in this world.

Spirituality carries a diverse range of meanings, and I wanted to write a series for pre-teens and teens that could help them work through that journey in the privacy of a book. For more information about Between Worlds, visit here.

I have some amazing news! My new YA series, Be Right Back, has received funding from the Ontario Arts Council (OAC). The series explores disability in ever-changing family dynamics.

Continuing to build family-friendly stories that celebrate diversity and look at tough questions, Be Right Backstars teenager Austin Tschirhart, whom many of my readers may have already met in Love on Belmont(Books #1 and #2) and Between Worlds (Book #9).

My Current Writing Style

Unique to this new series is the writing style. I usually write in what’s called the third person past, limited point of view. Much of what you read is likely written in this way. Here are some brief samples:

“You know what?” Aunt Anne said. “Why don’t they go to Mr. Casimiro’s for dessert?”

Mom’s eyes popped out of her head. “Oh, that sounds like a fabulous idea! I haven’t been in years!”

Juliana stared at both of them, but now even Sophie smiled. “But can we go by ourselves? Juliana’s fourteen.”

Taking advantage of Juliana’s age to get rid of the parents. Juliana liked how Sophie thought. ~Between Worlds 1: The Move

In this style, the scene is only told in the past, from the point of view of one character, but by referring to the character in the third person, i.e., they, he, or she. In addition, the reader only experiences what that character experiences.

A New Writing Style

Be Right Back will be a new journey for me, because I’ll be writing in the first person present. (“First person” automatically includes limited point of view.)

Reading a novel in this style will bring the reader right into Austin’s mind, where not only his thoughts and feelings but also his seizures, happen. Because of the nature of Austiin’s seizures, he’s not always aware of them. Indeed, his journey in the first novel is learning they exist at all.

Disability and Teen Fiction

When I was young, I read a lot of Jean Little’s books. Although I didn’t consider myself “handicapped” (the term we used at the time), I loved reading her stories about kids with disabilities. She had written in her memoir that she wanted to give the disabled children she was teaching the stories they were craving: stories about children disabled as they were, but who weren’t cured as part of the happy ending.

They wanted reality.

Much of my previous books so far—especially Between Worlds—have dealt with mental disability. Although Sophie, a supporting character in Between Worlds, has Stargardt disease, a rare eye condition, the better part of each novel focuses on the emotional trauma each of us carries inside.

Be Right Back includes not only that part of life, but also neurological disability.

How Much Is Personal?

This series is personal to me, but most of it is not from my personal life.

Although Austin’s absence seizures resemble to mine, his life story differs from mine in many respects:

• He discovered his seizures as a teen. / I discovered mine when I was 11.
• Austin can dive into the internet to research his diagnosis if he wants to. / There was no internet when I received my diagnosis.
• Austin’s seizures last up to 10 seconds. / Mine are under 4.5 seconds.
• Austin stares. / My eyelids flutter. (The technical term is eyelid myoclonia.)
• Ballet = life for Austin. / Ballet = a must-do art form for my dance competition career.

In addition to all of that, Austin’s regrets will differ from mine at that age.

If you’d like to stay up to date on the development of this series, send me your email address, and I’ll add you to the list. I email about once every two months, so your inbox will not explode.

I look forward to sharing Austin’s journey with you.

In my world of dance fiction, dance has more uses for storytelling than just "Will I pass this audition? Will I make it?" I love exploring the possibilities. A student of dance since I was 2.5 years old, I've written dance into many of my novels: the entire Between Worlds young adult series and two of my Love on Belmont sweet romance novels for adults. It will also form the backbone for my next young adult series, currently in the planning stages.

In this blog post, I’ll explain the themes important in my dance fiction, share why I enjoy writing it, and offer tips on writing dance fiction if you love dance, too. (You don’t have to have extensive training either.)

Uncommon Themes in Dance Fiction

The dance fiction I read as a kid often focused on “making it,” i.e., passing an audition, or successfully getting through the day at an elite ballet school. Many dance movie plots centre around this character goal, too. I already hear “Five, six, seven, eight!” from A Chorus Line.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJGaktlsD48]

I never turned professional. Does that mean my dance education was a waste of time? Hardly. That’s why I wrote Between Worlds, my young adult series about a teen dancer who’s going through some tough times and uses dance in part to pull herself through.

But having a successful career in dance isn’t a horrible thing by any stretch! So, what about those who made it? Professional dancers typically retire in their 30s and 40s. The other part that rarely gets portrayed in dance fiction (and dance movies) is dancers at the end of their career. Turning Point, with Shirley MacLaine, Anne Bancroft, and Mikhail Baryshnikov, is perhaps the closest I’ve found so far.

So, enter from stage right world ballet star Todd Parsons in Tea Shop for Two, and in a parallel career as a pro sports mascot actor, Pauline Robinson.

Or what about dancers diagnosed with a hidden disability? We may read about dancers who are injured and then return to training once everything’s better, but how would a dancer balance dealing with a disability while still yearning to become a professional dancer?

Young ballet dancer Austin in Tea Shop for Two and Oh, What the Fudge is currently just a supporting character as a teen in an adult sweet romance series, but he will soon be the star of his own young adult dance fiction series. His diagnosis of epilepsy in his teens throws him a curveball he didn’t anticipate.

Whether you're a dance enthusiast or simply searching for young adult reads for the young dancer(s) in your family, my dance fiction to date has something to offer.

Dance Fiction vs. Non-Fiction

Dance fiction and non-fiction may both explore the world of dance, but they approach it from different angles.

I research dance when I need to, either through non-fiction books, which provide insights into the history, techniques, and biographies of dancers, or by taking dance class.

[image of me taking adult ballet class]

But I don’t write non-fiction dance books.

Dance fiction takes readers on a fictional journey through the lives of dancers. Through it, I can freely explore areas of the dance world and how dance affects people in different situations. I can also let characters say whatever they need to so the plot keeps readers interested.

But ultimately, I want to show that dance helps us get through life.

Popular Dance Fiction Books and Authors

If you enjoy reading dance fiction, here are a few names to try. I haven’t read all of them myself, but they are popular or have received good reviews:

Young Adult Dance Fiction Books

·       Tiny Dancer, by Siena Cherson Siegel and Mark Siegel

·       Exit Stage Right and Face Off, both by fellow local author Jennifer Willcock

·       The Other Side of Perfect, by Mariko Turk

·       I Wanna Be Where You Are, by Kristina Forest

·       Pirouette, by Robyn Bavati

Dance Fiction Books in the Sweet Romance Genre

·       The Cheat Sheet, by Sarah Adams

·       Into Your Arms, by Abigail Storm

·       The Muse: A Pride and Prejudice Variation, by Jessica Evans

·       With a Twist, by Staci Hart

Researching and Incorporating Dance Styles into Fiction

Even though I studied dance in my youth for over 15 years and also take adult lessons when time allows, I still research, as I mentioned earlier.

That’s because even within the major forms of Western dance, e.g., ballet, tap, jazz, hip hop, there are different styles. Ballet is the easiest one for me to talk about: you’ll find Vaganova (Russian), Cecchetti (Italian), Royal Academy of Dance (English), and French styles perhaps the most well known. Other styles of ballet do exist, however.

Tap teachers and choreographers differ in their terminology to some degree but more predominantly (at least in my experience) in their counting. Some count in da and de, others in ta and te, and yet others will use numbers. And let’s not forget that some will mix it all together. Hands are often involved, clapping to either keep the beat, emphasize a difficult passage, do both, or act like feet tapping in the air.

Sitting in on a class or two to watch is ideal, but if you don’t have strong connections to a studio, you may find this difficult: understandably, adults in care of children won’t let just any adults sit in to watch children. But thankfully, the internet is full of videos, so you should be able to watch there a lot there these days.

Just ensure that you characters are consistent. For example, a ballet instructor who teaches only Cecchetti will only change vocabulary or technique if they have good reason to do so.

Challenges and Rewards of Writing Dance Fiction

Writing dance fiction comes with its own set of challenges and rewards. One of the challenges is effectively conveying the physicality and visual beauty of dance through words alone. For example, try this excerpt from Tea Shop for Two, where Todd is leading Pauline in improv dance.

…Todd raised their grasped hands to shoulder height. He released his fingers, so she followed, and he pressed his hand against hers. She followed again.

The pressure between their hands moved outwards and down. At first, Pauline simply copied Todd, turning her back when he turned his, leaning her head back onto his shoulder when he did so with his head to her shoulder. But once their cheeks touched and she closed her eyes, something changed: the energy she imagined feeling in a room of people now surged through them, the music leading it. She found herself stepping away from Todd as they each dropped into a deep lunge, held together only by their hands, feeling alone and barely able to hold on but by a metaphorical thread, a feeling she experienced sometimes when visiting terminally ill children. She couldn’t talk about it to anyone outside her line of work because it upset them too much. The closest she could get was others in her profession, usually big, strong, young men who turned to puddles at the mere mention of sick children and changed the topic.

Dance is a visual art form, and capturing its essence on the page without boring the reader through copious description is tough. Some have told me they found these descriptions hard to follow, for example. This passage is from Pauline’s perspective, so I couldn’t use any technical terminology.

Contrast that to Juliana’s dance sessions, which I often use to dissipate her emotions. This passage comes from Between Worlds 1: The Move, and Juliana is dancing with her Calgary dance group for the last time.

The music came on. Juliana, standing sideways, her head bent down and her right hand grabbing the rim of an invisible hat, dropped her heel in time with the beat, a simple rhythm to start the number. Then, one by one, each dancer heel-dropped to their own rhythm, creating a percussion foreground for the music. On a loud cymbal crash, they turned front, their heads down, waited eight counts, and then jumped into the opening riff sequence.

As Juliana’s feet slammed onto, slid along, and grazed across the floor, she thought of the conversation she’d had with Mom in the car on the way to the studio.

Thanks to one of my editors, Susan Fish, that dance sequence turned into a vehicle for backstory, thereby saving the need to repeat all of Juliana’s emotions as she performed a three-minute routine.

At least when you have to describe a painting or a photograph, you can usually work with vocabulary and imagery your readers know. Dance provides a challenge because much of a vocabulary is unfamiliar to readers; depending on the style of dance, the vocabulary differs; and each character has their personal approach to dance that needs to be honoured and portrayed.

Which brings me to my tips for you if you’d like to try your hand at dance fiction.

Tips for Aspiring Dance Fiction Writers

If you’re looking to write dance fiction yourself, these tips may help:

1. Just because you didn’t grow up taking dance lessons doesn’t mean you can’t write dance fiction. You most certainly can! But follow the rest of these suggestions so your book doesn’t read like it was written by a novice.

2. Research extensively: study the history, techniques, and cultural significance of the dance forms you want to use in your novel. Most ballet dancers, for example, don’t say “spinning” and “dancing on my toes” the way a layperson would. Thankfully, social media, online syllabi, and awareness days can help you create realistic portrayals.

3. Connect with dancers: interview dancers, attend workshops, and engage with the dance community. Their insights and experiences can provide invaluable inspiration and authenticity to your writing. But always ask about their background. A dancer who trained in an average-sized city in Canada will have had a different experience from one who trained in LA.

4. Find a balance between being true to dance and realizing your reader may not know what a chaîné turn is: I struggle with this frequently. I believe that for many laypeople, a “pirouette” is any turn, but for dancers, it’s a specific turn. In Tea Shop for Two, Todd says “pirouette.” Pauline, on the other hand, refers to this step performed by the man she is falling in love with as “spinning like the letter p.”

5. Don’t forget to include a range of characters: not all dancers are snobs, perfectionists, bunheads, backstabbers, or people with eating disorders. If you’re having a hard time steering clear of stereotypes, create your characters first, then add dance to their profile and see how that affects their personalities.

6. Don’t be afraid to express dance as emotion instead of steps: overwhelming readers of dance fiction with technical details can lead to boredom because it’ll feel like an information dump. And because it has emotion, it must have a reason for being in your book. Although dance fiction needs dance—obviously!—each dance scene must have a purpose.

7. Consider having others read your work: if you’re new to writing dance fiction, ask people who might enjoy reading your work to give you some feedback. (Asking someone who loves action novels to read a romance dance fiction excerpt, for example, may not illicit the comments you’re hoping for.)

Conclusion

Dance fiction usually focuses on a dancer—either a student or professional—“making it.” As a kid, this led me to believe that the only reason for studying dance was to become professional. That didn’t happen.

Instead, I learned over time how useful dance became in other areas of my life. Once I began penning dance fiction novels, I wanted to expand the genre to include more storylines, most importantly, dance as a way to get through life.

So, whether you're a dance enthusiast or simply seeking an escape into a world of passion and grace, you’ll hopefully find dance fiction here that fits your reading desires or those of a young person in your life.

Between Worlds is a dual-timeline series about two teen girls—Juliana and Elisabeth—who grow up a century apart. As much as I wanted to explore how teens have lived differently, I also wanted to provide a series that didn’t try to convince girls that a boyfriend was needed to have a fulfilling teen life. So, how does that play out in the series? I explain below.

Are Boyfriends Bad?

I had my first boyfriend when I was just shy of 16. I agreed to go out with him for two reasons: 1) He kept persisting at the library, where we met, and 2) the TV shows I watched and magazines I read said a boyfriend was something I needed as a teen.

Life would’ve been easier without him, and when he tried to French me about three months later (I’d turned 16 by then), I realized this was not what I wanted.

End of relationship.

On the other end of the spectrum, I know real-life high-school sweethearts who are a little older than me and still happily married. If they hadn’t been allowed to date, who knows what life would’ve been like for them?

What’s important to me now as a forty-something is that, although a relationship filled with passion and respect can add something beautiful to life, beginning dating while in high school isn’t a requirement for a beautiful life.

So, as they say, if you can’t find the books you want to read, write them.

Focused on Other Goals in Life: Juliana

The true protagonist of the series is Juliana Roth, who starts the series at age fourteen, when she’s hauled across the country by her parents so they can live with and care for her grandfather. He’s in the early stages of dementia, and other family aren’t available.

In the series, Juliana simply isn’t interested in boys because she has other goals that take up her time. Yes, she may find the odd boy here or there cute, but she has no desire to date. Not only does she have to adjust to life in a new city, halfway across Canada, but she wants to do well in school and in dance.

This portion of the YA series has no romance because Juliana’s too focused on her own growth.

Wanting Her Own Family: Elisabeth

Elisabeth is Juliana’s great-grandmother. We meet her at the tail end of 1919 and follow her through to the middle of 1920. She, too, starts the series as a fourteen-year-old.

However, unlike Juliana, who doesn’t know what life will bring, Elisabeth knows exactly what it will (or should) bring: she’ll spend her adult years as a housewife, looking after hearth and home and helping on the farm, while her husband earns his money with more farm work and possibly another business.

Although I believe it’s important that girls today figure out a way to earn their own keep that doesn’t rely on a partner earning all the money, I also believe that becoming a mother and homemaker are perfectly acceptable life goals. (In my youth, that was frowned upon because women were fighting for more equality in the workplace.)

When creating protagonists, though, you need to create a person who stands out in some way. Aiming to become the matriarch of a household is not unique in Elisabeth’s time.

She stands out because she wants to choose her husband. In Between Worlds 3: The First Step, for example, her mother and grandmother try to match her up with a young man close in age to Elisabeth, but she doesn’t like how he treats her or how his father treats him. Elisabeth is looking for someone who will treat her with respect, stay committed, and not act like—forgive the farming pun—an ass.

But there’s no hiding behind a haystack and making out, or even a gentle kiss throughout this series. Furthermore, Elisabeth’s desire for a husband is secondary to her main goal: helping her mom and family through her father’s sojourn in Pennsylvania, where he tries to earn more money.

So, that’s why I still consider these YA books to have no romance.

Who Is Between Worlds For?

I wrote the series for three reasons:

1)     to give Little Lori the series she would’ve loved, one that offered different ways to carry out a spiritual life;

2)     to let girls enjoy YA books without romance because a boyfriend is not needed for a fulfilling teen life; and

3)     to show that, for girls to truly grow up and be what they want to be, any future is fine, whether it’s being the head of the family or a physiotherapist (Juliana doesn’t know yet).

Although I write for a 12-14-year-old audience, many adults read and enjoy these YA books without romance, too. Ultimately, if you’re interested in history, teen life, and a series that focuses on family (I take a liberal view on what family means), then try Between Worlds 1: The Move and let me know what you think.

“Books with strong women” receives an estimated 350 search a month in the Amazon US store. “Stories about strong women” currently returns an estimated 1,200 searches a month. The same with “strong women characters fiction.” But what is a strong woman? Because if there are strong women, there must be weak women, right?

What I Used to Think “Strong Woman” Meant

My childhood was marked by 80s Feminism, which carried over into the 90s. In those days, women appeared to try to be like men:

·       shoulder pads that altered the look of a woman’s body

·       statistics that compared the economic worth of a woman’s household work to a man’s employment

·       women with the same strength as men (generally in the superhero/comic book genre)

·       TV shows that placed women in traditionally men’s roles:

o   Angela Bauer as a marketing executive with a male housekeeper

o   She-Ra, rebel fighter against the Horde, whose voice deepened when she transformed from Princess Adora (cute name) to She-Ra

o   Claire Huxtable, a lawyer

o   Katherine Janeway, captain of the starship Voyager

I’m sure you could add many more to that list. And women need to continue pressing into roles that are traditionally male, such as in construction, automotive, and software development.

However, there’s pushing into careers and roles that are traditionally done by men, and there’s trying to “act like a man.” Although related, they are different.

What a Strong Woman Might Mean Today

Trying to settle on a definition of what makes a woman strong presented a host of problems for me. Was it simply women who fought against the grain? But how does that apply to women who choose to run a household and raise the kids, which are traditionally female roles?

Do strong women have a high amount of self-confidence? Then what about the women dealing with abuse and unable to find a way out of their situation?

Do strong women have ample muscle mass, a physical sign of strength? Maybe. But how does that apply to women who genetically don’t produce a lot of muscle, who may be disabled, or who simply hate lifting weights?

Do strong women shout from the rooftops to stand up for themselves? Some absolutely do. Others build their resistance to inequality quietly. (Of course, some people will argue that the latter group is more “ladylike” than the former. Don’t get me started on that! It’s a topic for a different time.)

The only conclusion I can come to at this point in my life is that “strong woman” means a woman who decides for herself. She will likely pull in opinions from others to help her gain a broader perspective of whatever she’s trying to solve, but she will come to that decision on her own.

Strong Women in Books

This is why all my female protagonists are strong women:

·       14-year-old Juliana Roth from Between Worlds does her best to cope with a move halfway across Canada. Over time, she learns how to take control of her own destiny despite the changes happening to her.

·       14-year-old Elisabeth, a teen in the aftermath of World War I, wishes to choose her husband for herself (against the will of her family), and learns that what we today call mental illness is not a punishment from God.

·       40-something Pauline, a weightlifter, jogger, gymnast, and professional sports mascot, has no problems entertaining thousands—even millions—while in costume, but at the beginning of Tea Shop for Two, she goes silent when she has to address a few dozen tea lovers as herself.

·       40-something Tracy, best friends with Pauline, tries to balance the seismic changes in her family while parenting her disabled teen.

·       Claire, whom we follow from when she opens her own business in the 1960s in her 20s, to her 70s, when she retires, has survived spousal abuse and discrimination, but also raised her family while running her business.

Writing About Strong Women in Books

As I write my novels, I try to avoid creating strong women in the image of men. Instead, I put them into situations that call on them to trust their truth and rise to the occasion. Sometimes this involves gender-bending, as with Pauline. Other times, it involves women in traditionally female roles as mothers pushing the world to accept them as they are while they raise their family, like Claire.

Books with strong women shouldn’t relegate themselves to a single definition: a woman with male qualities who fights. We can most definitely include this woman in our arsenal of strong women, but we can’t forget the women who move quietly through life at their own pace, doing their best to do what’s right.

I generally find writing books about new beginnings easier than those about old beginnings. What do I mean by old and new beginnings? Old beginnings are in the past: you already have some kind of template to work from when you encounter something similar again. New beginnings have never happened before.

Although you could argue that all beginnings are old—we have some measure of experience that informs how we handle ourselves in each beginning—I’m talking about similar experiences. For example, many new parents are surprised by all the work involved in raising a baby. Many new employees find it hard to acclimate to a new workplace, even if they’ve done that job before.

Most of the storylines in both my YA books and my sweet romance series focus on new beginnings. But one book in particular focuses on old beginnings. Writing from these two approaches is actually quite different.

Introducing New Beginnings in Books

Pauline in Tea Shop for Two experiences a mix of old and new beginnings. Her romance with Todd is a new beginning. Her return to town after a successful career as a mascot actor is a mix of new and old: she’s never been fully in charge of her mother’s tea shop before, but she worked there often in her youth.

Even the creation of Tea Shop for Two is a mix of old and new beginnings. I’d been chin deep in Between Worlds but wanted to begin another series to keep my creative juices flowing and to challenge myself. Since Between Worlds has almost no romance in it, and I love my Christmas romance movies, I opted for the sweet romance novel.

Looking through old ideas, I came across a draft about a character named Tamara, written roughly three years earlier. I liked the idea—I’m fascinated by who people really are under the masks they wear. (Granted, sometimes I’d rather not know.)

But I’d also developed a new fascination with theme-park mascot actors. Who in their right mind agrees to be paid minimum wage (so far as I know) to wear the equivalent of two parkas in 35˚C weather? Or encase themselves in foam and fleece with hardly any vision and whip around on ice skates or jump through a flaming hoop to land a slam dunk?

I wrote those impressions into Pauline’s life experience. We meet her as Perry the Peregrine in Tea Shop for Two:

A new song distracted Pauline. She jumped off the parade float to high-five fans and flex her arms for the kids, who returned the gesture while their parents took pictures. A few adults reached for her tail, but the extra security detail Ben had ordered pushed them away. She jumped back on the float to cool down in front of the fan and take sips from the camel pack, the straw of which she held in her mouth the entire time. Another uncomfortable aspect of the day.

“You’re loving this, aren’t you?” asked Derek, who stood on the float with her.

Pauline nodded as she began clapping overhead, getting the audience to join in and cheer, “Peregrines to victory!”

“I’m glad it’s not me in there,” he said. “Those two photo sessions were enough for me.”

She patted him on the back to thank him for stepping in while she’d been away and took another sip. Even though she’d frozen a good amount of the rehydration solution into ice cubes, her drink was already warm. She could’ve brewed green tea in there, come to think of it.

“By the way, Ben just confirmed some good news over the system.”

Pauline waved to the crowd in the other direction, but she was listening.

“When we get to the stage in Nathan Philips Square, the prime minister of Canada wants a photo op with you.”

Pauline whipped her head to face Derek and her gloved hands flew to Perry’s beak. She couldn’t wait to tell…well, no one. But who cared that she couldn’t tell anyone? This was the ultimate life, even if she lived it in a rotisserie oven. She pumped her arms in the air.

[Tea Shop for Two, chapter 11]

When Teens Face New Beginnings

Adults have the blessing (or curse) of many beginnings. Depending on their age, increasingly more beginnings may be old ones.

But fourteen-year-old Juliana in Between Worlds hasn’t lived through enough life-changing challenges to have many old beginnings. Almost everything for her is new: the city, the home, the school, the dance school, the friends… She even meets her extended family in person for the first time. Until then, they didn’t appear any bigger than the images on her parents’ devices or laptops.

Moving halfway across the country is not a new beginning Juliana looks forward to:

Mom pressed her lips into a tight line and took another deep breath before she spoke. “The oldest of Anne’s kids still live at home and she cooks for them so they can focus on their studies. We didn’t make this decision lightly, Juliana. Neither of my siblings can check in on Opa every day. Trust me. I talked to them.”

“And not to me.”

Another deep breath.

“He also doesn’t want strangers in his home every day. So, since both my job and your father’s can be done anywhere in the country, it makes the most sense that the three of us move.”

Juliana slammed her hand on her lap. “But my life can’t just happen somewhere else in the country!”

Her father shot her look, this one telling her to keep it down. “You’re a teenager,” he replied dryly. “There are thousands of schools in Canada, most with hundreds of students for you to choose your friends from. Same with dance studios. Your ‘life’ can very well be done anywhere in the country.”

Juliana propped her elbow on the table and stared at the TV over the bar. Why did Mom have to bring this all up again?

[The Move, chapter 3]

Even though Juliana started at a dance studio once before and even had a “first day of school,” she would’ve been so young that her memories are shaky at best–if she has any at all.

New beginnings come with a great deal of transition, some of it very painful. But taking time to experience this newness, to explore it, can bring about wondrous surprises. Juliana discovers her great-grandmother’s artwork, and as an artist herself—albeit a performing artist—she finds herself bolstered by another teenager’s creative work. It’s self-affirming and helps her move forward.

Working With Old Beginnings in Novels

Novels don’t have to focus on new beginnings. In Teas of Joy, Claire and Richard have been married fifty years and in their respective lifestyles for at least a year when the novel starts. No moving, no new relationships, no new jobs, nothing.

Dawn’s phone dinged.

“It’s Dad, wondering if you’ll be on time,” she said.

Claire had a coy smile on her face. Richard Robinson, the man of Claire’s dreams. Dashing when they’d met in their twenties, and still dashing in his seventies. “Tell your father perfection is worth the wait. And that he’d better not be playing a Rolling Stones song.”

The feud that had started it all: Were The Rolling Stones or The Monkees the better group? The Robinson jury was still out on that.

“And tell him we’ll be on time,” Claire added. “If he wants me walking across the dance floor to a Stones song, I’ll respect his choice. You don’t survive fifty years without making concessions. Just so long as it’s not ‘Can’t Get No Satisfaction.’”

[Teas of Joy, chapter 1]

On the one hand, writing about such an old relationship gave me lots to work with, such as Claire and Richard’s differences in music and their personal histories. But the decision to work from old beginnings also created difficulties. For example, I had to find a way to follow the romance arc readers crave, but without a meet cute, first kiss, and other familiar scenes. How could I accomplish that? Plus, what could I uncover about Claire and Richard that they didn’t already know about each other?

Of course, Claire and Richard have conversations and experiences that contribute to the conflict, but old beginnings drive the plot.

In the end, Teas of Joy became a beautiful story of love, forgiveness, and a long relationship that grew even deeper.

New Beginnings, Old Beginnings…Main Thing: Good Story

Regardless of what kind of beginning I use in each novel, my ultimate hope is that my readers enjoy their time in the worlds I’ve created. At time of writing, I’m working on the final book of Between Worlds, which will deal with the many new beginnings that have been happening in the series, and Love on Belmont 4, which, as a second-chance romance, will focus on an old beginning.

Have you ever thought about old and new beginnings in the stories you read? What have you liked? Feel free to leave the titles of other books here so readers can explore new authors!

I love reading romance novels about characters my age or older: What experiences do we share? How do their lives differ from mine? What might I be able to look forward to as I near my 50s, 60s, and 70s? Later-in-life romance novels follow older characters looking for love. Since my Love on Belmont series is about an entire community, it also includes later-in-love romance books.

What Are Later-in-Life Romance Books?

This romance subgenre focuses on protagonists who are 40 or over. So if you like reading about people over 40 falling in love, this is your jam.

This subgenre can come in all levels of spice, from clean novels to sweet romance to spicy to erotica. In other words, it’s not about heat level but about character age. Looking for a novel about people in their older years? This is the subgenre to search for. Amazon.com has a subcategory for it, too.

Why Write Later-in-Life Romance Novels?

Unfortunately, this subgenre doesn’t exist on Amazon.ca, which suggests it isn’t that popular north of the border yet. To underline the lack of popularity, Booknet Canada reported earlier this year that interest in later-in-life romance books is decreasing.

In a 2022 report by K-Lytics, which analyzed Amazon data, later-in-life romance books were fifth from the bottom of a list of 24 subgenres. Contemporary romance topped the chart, followed by mystery & suspense, romantic comedy, and paranormal.

From a financial perspective, it doesn’t make sense to write later-in-life romances.

However, I find so much more to explore when characters are older:

·       Pauline (47) and Todd (43) meet because they’re both forced out of their physically demanding artistic careers (Tea Shop for Two).

·       Tracy (48) and Ben (35) show a strong gap between their generations: Tracy has to care for her teenaged son, who has epilepsy, while juggling renewed interests from her estranged husband (51), and Ben has never been married, doesn’t have any children, and was recently fired from a company he’d spent 10 years at (Oh, What the Fudge).

·       Claire (76) and Richard (79) find themselves at opposite poles when they realize they have different goals for their stage in life, putting their marriage of 50 years at risk (Teas of Joy).

Although these plots aren’t impossible in younger age groups, I have a lot more to work with, like career legacy and lifelong community impact.

Will All Love on Belmont Books Be in This Romance Subgenre?

Because this series involves a real community, the series will not focus on a single age group. For example, Tracy’s son, Austin, who’s 16 when the Love on Belmont novels begin, will have his own romance story when he’s old enough. So that readers don’t have to wait too long, that will happen when he’s in his early 20s.

Moreover, Love on Belmont 4 will have two thirty-somethings as the main characters. It’s completely by accident that Mayumi has a child and Terry doesn’t: I created the characters at different times, and it didn’t occur to me that there’d be parallels between them and Tracy and Ben. But Teas of Joy establishes their background, so that part is now fixed.

Which Love on Belmont Books are Later-in-Life Romances?

At time of writing, almost all of them. But to be specific, these are the titles:

·       Trick or Tea (a short-story prequel)

·       Oh, Christmas Tea (a short-story prequel)

·       Tea Shop for Two

·       Oh, What the Fudge

·       Teas of Joy

Which Books, Then, Aren’t Later-in-Life Romances?

Only these two:

·       Claire’s Tea Shop (the first short-story prequel)

·       Love on Belmont 4: title still TBD

The fifth book may also be between thirty-somethings, but the idea is very, very vague in my mind at this point.

To start a new later-in-life author, give the Love on Belmont series a try and let me know how you like it. If you sign up to my mostly-monthly newsletter, you’ll get the three short stories for free as a thank you for joining my community.

What do you think about later-in-life romance novels? Yea or nay?

Stephen King doesn’t leave his desk until he’s hit his daily quota. World-renowned choreographer Twyla Tharpe collects ideas for a time before she sits down to plan her next project. Louisa May Alcott disappeared in her loft or writing room for several weeks, emerging with a hand-written draft of her latest novel.

So, when I attended an in-person talk with Japanese bestselling author Toshikazu Kawaguchi, I was expecting to hear about a similar creative routine that helped create this bestselling novel.

I was instead surprised and inspired by his story.

What Is Before the Coffee Gets Cold About?

The novel has sold upwards of 6 million copies and been translated into over 40 languages by now.

I don’t think I can even list 40 languages.

The novel focuses on a small, basement café with an older ambience. Rumour has it that you can travel back in time there. However, line-ups to this café don’t look like Disney World during March Break because of several inconvenient rules. This means not too many make the attempt.

The novel is a collection of four intertwined short stories that pulled at my heart strings. If you like stories that take a light hand to the harder aspects of life, this is such a novel.

Although it can be considered a breakout novel, the creative journey Toshikazu has been on to get to this point should inspire anyone to pick up the pen wherever they are in life.

This information is taken from his talk at the Japan Foundation in Toronto in September 2024. Any quotes are from the extremely talented interpreter’s translation into English. Toshikazu doesn’t speak English.

Getting a Start

After three unsuccessful years of attempting to break into the manga scene, Toshikaze Kawaguchi needed a different opportunity. Thankfully, a friend pitched joining his theatre group.

Cue soul-searching scene in a movie, right?

Not for Toshikazu. In a manner that resembles Brittlestar, my favourite Canadian comedian, he told the audience that he shrugged at this friend and said, “Yeah, sure, okay.”

The group’s name is Sonic Snail, and he has since produced, written, and directed for them. After a showing of his play, Before the Coffee Gets Cold, an editor in the audience approached him and asked if he’d be willing to turn what had been created for a small room of maybe 100 people into a novel.

As with the new role in the theatre group, Toshikazu also accepted this new challenge.

His time in theatre set the stage (pun fully intended) for his trajectory into writing novels.

Writing for Stage and Readers

The starkest difference between writing for stage and readers, Toshikazu said, was the collaborative experience of working with actors as he created his plays and the solitary world of the novelist as he wrote.

When he created a piece of theatre with actors, he could ask them for ideas when he couldn’t solve a problem. Or he might get inspired by an emotional reaction an actor had that Toshikazu hadn’t thought of.

However, with writing a novel, his only source for input was his editor, and this changed his creative process to a more solitary one, which he wasn’t used to.

Writing 21^st-Century Style

Too many movies show a writer at a typewriter or at a desk with pen/quill and paper. Although this will have something to do with the time of the movie—you very well can’t have Louisa May Alcott writing at a computer—I believe it also has to do with simply showing the audience what’s happening.

Showing someone sitting at a screen is rarely exciting. Even Colin Firth in Love, Actually writes his novel on a typewriter. (After all, how else could you have all those pages flying away so the woman cleaning for him can strip and jump into freezing cold water?)

For a real-world example, here’s my writing setup, all on my desktop:

1.        Scapple for brainstorming

2.        Plottr for outlining and more brainstorming

3.        Scrapbooks for more brainstorming

4.        Scrivener for writing

5.        ProWritingAid for deep editing

6.        Word for sending it to human editors

7.        PerfectIt for proofreading

I also use analog tools: pen and paper, and my 1930s Remington Noiseless (not so noiseless) typewriter, but only for brainstorming. And of course, humans are involved in the full process.

Toshikazu? He wrote Before the Coffee Gets Cold using the Notes app on his iPhone. Given how complex my writing process has become, I almost fell of my chair when I heard that.

But the convenience of having his novel on him in a free app outweighed any desire to develop a more complex process. For him, having his novel on hand when he had an idea during a walk in the park was more important. Many writing apps offer the same convenience, of course, but he knew how to use Note, so the stuck with it.

Writing Advice from Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Toshikazu discussed one of his favourite influences, how he approached writing his novel, and how he edits. I love nothing more than learning how others approach writing.

Read Keeichiro Hirano

Toshikazu said that a current influence of his is Japanese writer Keeichiro Hirano, author of A Man. He was “totally bowled over” and finished the novel “maybe even a little depressed,” because he couldn’t believe that someone had the ability to write like that.

I’ve begun reading A Man and can’t wait to see what Toshikazu was talking about.

Retaining Focus

Theatre has taught Toshikazu that the audience can only focus on one thing at a time. Taking that idea to heart in his own theatre work, he eliminates all excess from his plays. To him, that logic also applies to books: a reader can only read one book in any given minute. So, when he’s drafting a scene in a novel, he looks at things one at a time.

When my editor works on my manuscripts, she often helps me cut considerable amounts of story because I lose focus of the plot. Visualizing myself creating my story while staring through a pin hole will hopefully help me achieve a more focused story before Susan sees it so she can make it even better.

When to Edit the First Time

Toshikazu also strongly emphasized finishing your first draft before you consider editing. He said nothing is more important than seeing your novel through to the end.

This is one area I disagree with him on. I find it easier to write about 25%, edit the draft once for plot and consistency, and then write and edit the next 25%. Then I’ll do a deep review of that first half of the novel before writing the next 25%.

Reviewing at set points before I continue helps me ensure continuity and reduces deeper editing after the first draft is done. Nothing like believing your romance couple met on a Wednesday at work in the beginning of your novel and unknowingly changing it to a Friday at a theme park.

Your Life Is Not Boring: Finding Inspiration for Your Writing

I found this portion of the talk especially inspiring. Toshikazu explained that a lot has happened in his life, so his life provides the inspiration for his books.

I remember reading once that if publishers feel your first novel is too autobiographical, they may not take it. After all, the thinking apparently goes, what do you have left to write from for the next book?

Now that I’ve been writing and independently publishing my books since 2017, I see both sides but lean toward Toshikazu’s observation. In my case, I often focus on replicating emotional experiences instead of actual events, although I situate my novels in real places.

Japanese writer Haruki Murakami wrote in his memoir that he, too, believes writing is easier if you pull from your own experiences:

“Writers who do not rely on weighty material but instead reach inside themselves to spin their tale, by contrast, have an easier time of it. That’s because they can draw on their daily lives the events routinely taking place around them, the scenes they witness, the people they encounter–and then freely apply their imaginations to that material to construct their own fiction. In short, they use a form of renewable energy.” Haruki Murakami, Novelist as a Vocation, p. 85

So, if you think your life is too boring, think again.

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Goal as a Writer

What Toshikazu is ultimately trying to achieve, he said, is to tell tales that people will connect to 30 years from now. That’s why he focuses on emotions and the human experience: kindness, regret, hope, and more.

That’s the kind of writer I love to read.

Age difference romance novels give romance novelists one way to show that sometimes, we really can’t decide who we fall in love with. When I was out in the dating world a loonnngggg time ago, I had two rules: no more than seven years older, and not a day younger than me. Then I fell in love during my grad student years with someone I’d assumed was older but was in fact a year younger. Believe it or not, I did go through an identity crisis for about 24 hours all because of that one year.

The man I ultimately chose to spend my life with turned out to be older than me again—old enough that he could scoff at my childhood cartoons. No reminiscing about Thundercats with him if I don’t want to hear what high schoolers thought about the show in the 80s!

But I’d learned my lesson back in my 20s: age doesn’t always make a difference when we fall in love. That’s why I wrote Oh, What the Fudge as an age difference romance novel.

Types of Age Gap Romance Novels

Age difference romance novels, also called age gap romance novels, can be of the racy kind—student/teacher novels appear frequently when I peruse online catalogues. Those aren’t my style, but no judgement if you enjoy them! I just wanted to write an age difference romance that wasn’t going to cross professional ethical lines.

Romances where one partner is considerably older than the other can show up in any sub-genre: later in life romances, contemporary romances, historical romances, small town romances, LGBTQ romances… I find they’re more about character qualities instead of a specific plot trope. So, if you love this kind of story, trying searching either “age difference romance” or “age gap romance” with your favourite online retailer.

Stereotypes in Books Where Age Difference Is Part of the Plot

We have a lot of stereotypes about age difference: sugar daddies and cougars, for example. Yet, I’m sure you know, as do I, couples who simply fell in love, age be damned.

I love playing with gender stereotypes in my writing. In Tea Shop for Two, for example, I play with the simple assumption that the man must be taller than the woman. Someone on social media asked me if the two inches in the other direction make a difference, and as someone who’s dated men who were two or three inches shorter than me, they do.

I’m not talking about loving shorter people differently. But what are common images you see on romance posters? The woman tucked up against the man, her head either against his shoulder or chest. Or she’s facing him, looking up at him lovingly. It gives the impression that the woman needs comfort from the man.

Of course, we enter into romantic relationships in part for comfort. I’ve also met women over the years who refuse to date a man shorter than them.

But to constantly see that image bothered me.

Just two inches in the other direction, and I had Todd looking up to Pauline, discovering how nice it was to lean his head on someone’s shoulder for a change.

How Many Years Apart Are Tracy and Ben?

So I wanted to tackle an age gap romance between a man in his 30s and a woman in her late 40s who had a teenaged son. They’re 13 years apart, which some readers may feel doesn’t qualify as an age gap, but it definitely does for me. Plus, I didn’t want to deal with the complexities of Tracy dating someone who could be her son: I had other, more pressing topics to explore.

But here are a few problems that couples who are only a few years apart rarely have:

·       When Tracy retires at 65 and may want to travel and enjoy the retired life, Ben will still be working full time for another 13 years, enjoying probably at most three weeks’ vacation.

·       Tracy has one kid and doesn’t want to start over when she’s almost 50. What does Ben want?

·       Tracy is also having difficulties helping Austin with his epilepsy diagnosis. She’s done with relationships and is now 100% focused on her son when she’s not overwhelmed by her other commitments. (Ben respects that, but love has different plans for them.)

·       Ben’s also never had kids—will he be okay acting as a father figure to Austin?

·       Then there’s Austin’s actual father, separated from his mother and on the verge of finalizing their divorce. He’s in his fifties and definitely has a few thoughts about this younger man having influence over his son.

Why an Age Gap Romance Book With an Older Woman?

The woman is always the true protagonist in each of my romances, and since Tracy was only a few years older than me when I wrote the book, it was easier to put myself in her shoes and argue with her about why she shouldn’t enter into this romance with a younger man.

Interestingly enough, I avoided a few of those problems I just mentioned, like if Tracy would worry about Ben wanting children of his own, in my earlier drafts. Thankfully, one of my editors brought it up. I was worried the concern would be too “stereotypical,” but any decision about children affects every couple and can cause them to part ways. Sometimes what seems stereotypical is simply common.

Is There a Happy Ever After Ending?

I know someone who always reads the back of the book before buying, because they want to ensure a happy ending. Is there a happy ending to this age difference romance novel?

Yes.

Oh, What the Fudge is available globally. You can find your store here.