“Everything is cool when you’re part of a team,” proclaims that zingy song from The LEGO Movie. In the context of the movie, the song turns out to be ironic, but for me the words ring true, as I’m part of the team of writers at Gilded Dragonfly Books, and we are celebrating the publication of our newest holiday anthology, A Stone Mountain Christmas.

I had a chance to chat with my fellow Gilded Dragonfly writers when I attended my first (as Nan Monroe) meeting of the Georgia Romance Writers on November 15. Here’s a picture of us; my husband Matt, whom my writing comrades have dubbed “Nan’s prince,” took the photo:

Front row L – R: Carol Ansardi, Mary Marvella, Jackie Rod. Back row L – R: Melba Moon, a.k.a. M.J. Flournoy, Nan Monroe, Yasmin Bakhtiari.

You can read our work in Haunting Tales of Spirit Lake as well as A Stone Mountain Christmas. Readers of these anthologies will enjoy a pleasing variety of styles and perspectives. The anthologies are available on Amazon.com. We are all awesome!

***

Anna diStefano, one of the speakers at the 11/15 GRW meeting, imparted this bit of crucial wisdom: It’s important to know why you write.

This should be obvious, but it isn’t. When we’re caught up in the hard work of writing, particularly in the choresome business of preparing a draft for publication, we may forget what we love about writing. We may lose sight of why it’s so important to us. If we’re to make any impact as writers, we need to keep our purpose clear before our eyes.

So on this day I declare why I write:

1) I write so the female monsters in my imagination will find both agency and love.

2) I write to play around with the usual notions of what a romantic hero and heroine should be, in appearance and situation.

3) I write for the same reason I read: to transform myself, for a little while, into something other than the real, physical, twenty-first century me. I write, as I read, to stretch myself beyond the here and now.