DIARy of a fic fiend | official blog of kilby blades

Whoa! Have you seen some of the names on the finalists list for this year's NRCAs? I'm on the same page--twice--with Jill Shalvis. Being in such talented company makes it even sweeter that "Snapdragon" has made it to the finals in this year's National Readers' Choice Awards for Best First Book and Erotic Romance! I'll be looking forward to RWA Nationals in Denver in July, where they'll be announcing the winners and where I hope to meet (in person) some of the lovely ladies of OKRWA. Beyond staying with me through some technical problems as I was entering the contest, these girls were all just as sweet as apple pie.

I wouldn't have even entered the IPPY Awards if it hadn't been for my friend, Liz. She is my beta reader, turned get-off-your-ass-and-come-to-RWA-nationals, turned mentor-of-all-things-author-world, turned friend. When I met Liz about a year and a half ago, she gave Snapdragon a look before I published it. At the time, she herself had just won a Bronze IPPY in the Romance category for her wonderful second chances novel, Caught Up in Raine, and had some very nice-looking pictures of her floating around from the awards gala. It was Liz who inspired me to even take the step of entering awards.…

Believe it or not, this story starts with me waking up to an e-mail messsage in Bolivia. For those of you who have never been to La Paz, the elevation is around 12,000 feet and my altitude sickness medicine made it so that I was getting only about four hours per night of sleep. So, for one, I was cranky. Add to that the fact that I hadn't seen my family for going on a week. Unable to sleep at the early hour of 5AM (2AM, my local time) I was figuring this wouldn't be my best day. Until it was. My friend-who-happens-to-be-a-writing-coach, Beth Barany, had forwarded me an e-mail…

More great news about "Snapdragon"! This week, it was named a Finalist in the 2017 Foreword Indies Awards in the Erotica (Adult Fiction) category. This feels particularly special, since the very first book I published, in 2012, a non-fiction book under my real name also won the Foreword Indies prize in its category. As most folks know, Kilby Blades is a pen name, since I write the steamy stuff :) Indie publishing isn't easy. There are a ton of wonderful indie books out there (most of the indie romance I read, for me, surpasses the bestsellers). I can't tell you how gratified I am to receive the validation that a book that started as drabble a few years before I made a serious tackle to write it received such recognition…

BookLife and Publishers Weekly announced the titles advancing to the quarterfinals of the 2017 BookLife Prize. My debut novel, "Snapdragon" is one of the seventy-nine chosen works. The mission of the BookLife Prize is to discover, cultivate, support, and celebrate great works of unpublished or self-published writing by independent authors. The Prize also aims to provide feedback to authors about their work, provide a Critic’s Report which may assist finalists in the marketing of their fiction, and provide financial support via a cash prize to the grand-prize winner.

BookLife and Publishers Weekly announced the titles advancing to the quarterfinals of the 2017 BookLife Prize. My debut novel, "Snapdragon" is one of the seventy-nine chosen works. The mission of the BookLife Prize is to discover, cultivate, support, and celebrate great works of unpublished or self-published writing by independent authors. The Prize also aims to provide feedback to authors about their work, provide a Critic’s Report which may assist finalists in the marketing of their fiction, and provide financial support via a cash prize to the grand-prize winner.