Romance is in the air this spring - not the candlelit-dinner kind, but the kind found between the pages of a novel. Writers converge on the Valley of the Sun for the Desert Rose Romance Writers conference, and with them arrives a reminder that romance is one of the largest and most durable categories in all of publishing.
Behind the covers is a genuine craft and a genuine industry: disciplined writers, devoted readers, and a market that outsells most others year after year. For aspiring novelists, the genre offers something rare - a wide-open door, and a community eager to hold it.
If writing a novel is a dream of yours, a conference like Desert Rose is the place to begin. The plot, as they say, thickens - and it may just be your own story that gets written next.
Originally published in View AZ Highlife Magazine, Feb / Mar 2008.