November 30 is one of my favorite days of the year. It’s the last day of National Novel Writing Month and for the past four years, I’ve completed a first draft, 50,000 words. I’ve “lost” a couple of years, too. But I was naive then, unaware of the massive amount of focus it takes to…
Halfway through NaNoWriMo and I’m slipping behind. Bad. With half a month to go it seemed like a good time to get a new strategy in place. So today I’ve marked my computer with my new daily goal. 2,200 words. Every day for the rest of the month. I’m cooking for Thanksgiving so I’ll be…
What makes a book worthy of the Romance Writers of America’s annual RITA award? I wanted to know from a reader’s perspective. So armed with the cover of the September RWA magazine, Romance Writers Report, I started looking for them, the best of all the novels submitted to the annual contest. There are 13, everything…
Originally posted on Mary K. Tilghman, writer:
Spring Author Series Rising Sun Inn, Crownsville, MD NEW DATE!! Saturday, April 13, 2019 I am honored to announce I will speak as part of the Spring Author Series at the Rising Sun Inn. However, due to scheduling complications (family obligations—A wedding!‚) the date has been changed to April 13,…
I have been living and breathing Annapolis in December 1783 for ages. I wrote the first draft of my early American Cinderella story for Nanowrimo in, major sigh, 2016. I fell in love with my characters right away. Rosalind, in love with a neighbor since they were children playing in the garden, is sent off…
The sun hadn’t shone for days but when the Baltimore Book Festival opened Friday morning, the clouds slipped out of the way of the sun and we were treated to three gorgeous early fall days. Baltimore’s Inner Harbor was packed with book-lovers. I spent a lot of time with the Maryland Romance Writers. Even though I…
The Baltimore Book Festival is set to begin Friday morning at 11. If you love books and writers, words and sentences, grammar and punctuation, pizza and Asian steamed buns (I always have to mention food), this is your festival. The Maryland Romance Writers tent is on Light Street near the Visitors Center. The schedule is…
For the Baltimore Book Festival, I have been asked to participate in a fun game of book cover Bingo with fellow members of the Maryland Romance Writers. It is my responsibility to come up with five covers of five books I LOVE!!! to go on the game boards. How to choose? I read a ton…
A year ago today, Divided Loyalties hit the bookstores. (Well, it actually hit the Amazon virtual bookstore. My story about a courageous teenage girl, her patriotic brother, their all-American friends and the battlefields and hospitals that changed their lives was born. So happy birthday to Maureen. To Joe. To their parents Kate and Daniel. To…
I was totally honored to find my book on a summer reading list with some great Baltimore writers in a column published this week. As the CBSLocal.com writer Joel Furchess said: “For your summer reading, try Tilghman’s “Divided Loyalties,”a story placed in the Civil War era, and featuring a narrative of a battlefield nurse and…
Mary K. Tilghman, writer 