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Featuring Meriam Wilhelm

Featuring Meriam Wilhelm Author of the Month

The one thing I know, after all my years as an elementary school principal, is that there is magic everywhere and in everyone. While I miss those enchanting moments with kids, I have always wanted to let my imagination run wild as I seek out my own magic and write about it. When I retired, I started to write my first books, a series called The Witches of New Moon Beach and inspiration wasn’t hard to find.

I have lived in Redondo Beach all my life, and New Moon might have more than a passing resemblance to my hometown. Every day I walk on the path that runs along the beach, sometimes with my sisters, but most often with my thoughts as I plot my next book.

I am long married and mom to three great grown kids. When I’m not writing or walking on the beach, you’ll find me sewing, reading or traveling and taking pictures.

Website: www.meriamwilhelm.com

MURDER BY MAGIC

THE WITCH OF BERGEN

THE WITCHES OF NEW MOON BEACH BOXED SET

SEA DREAMS

SUNSET SPELLS

MIDNIGHT MADNESS

NIGHT FLIGHT

MORNING MAGIC

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Women in Banking #WomensHistoryMonth

March 28, 2020 by Alina K. Field in category Quarter Days by Alina K. Field

Welcome to my quarterly blog at A Slice of Orange!

We’re living in interesting times, and I was tempted to write a post about historical plagues and pandemics… But, if you’re like me, you’re heartily sick of hearing about them.

So, since March is Women’s History Month in the U.S., I’m sharing a gem of a book I found about women bankers.

Women Who Made Money: Women Partners in British Private Banks 1752-1906 , by Margaret Dawes and Nesta Selwyn

Regency romance enthusiasts will know the story of Sarah Sophia Fane Child Villiers, Countess of Jersey and one of the patronesses of Almack’s. Sarah inherited a partnership in Child’s Bank, and became an active participant in the bank’s management until her death in 1867. (Her mother, also named Sarah, had been cut out of the will after her scandalous elopement to Gretna Green with the Earl of Westmoreland!)

But, you ask, didn’t the law say that all of a woman’s property became her husband’s upon marriage?

The authors explain how some women, either through the wisdom of enlightened parents or their own power as widows managed this:

The law has always offered loop-holes. Provision could be made in her marriage settlement for a woman to retain the use of her own property . . . It was also possible for a woman’s property to be placed in the hands of trustees before her marriage, so that her husband could have no use of it without her consent.

The Marriage Settlement, by William Hogarth

Marriage settlements were extremely important financial and legal agreements negotiated by wealthy parties prior to marriage. Today, we call those “pre-nups”.

Middle-class Country Bankers

The book includes the stories of Lady Jersey and Harriet Mellon Coutts, an actress who inherited her husband’s interest in Coutts Bank and went on to marry the Duke of St. Albans (and still retain ownership of her wealth). But most of the seventy-six women bankers were solidly middle-class.

Campion Bank House, Originally the banking house of Margaret and Robert (her son) Campion, founded in 1800, Courtesy geograph.org.uk

Many women established country banks with husbands or sons. Some inherited banks. Many also engaged alone or with husbands in other types of commerce, such as shipping, mining, or manufacturing.

And you won’t find most of these women mentioned in Wikipedia!

If you’re interested in a chronicle of women in business in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, you might enjoy this book.

Wishing you much good health until we meet again in June!

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OCC Proudly Presents Two Contests for 2020

March 27, 2020 by A Slice of Orange in category Contests, Writing Contest tagged as Contests, Orange Rose Contest, The BBB Contest

Book Buyers Best Contest

Open to works of romantic fiction published in 2019.

Contest opens January 15, 2020

Deadline for receiving manuscripts is April 15, 2020

Hello published writers!

We wanted to let you know that OCC/RWA is running our annual Book Buyers Best Contest for any author who has published a work of fiction any time during 2019 (traditional or self-published). The contest is open now and closes on April 15th. We welcome you to submit to our contest.

Here is the link describing the contest rules.

Please email us if you have any further questions.

—————————–
Cathleen Armstrong and Nancy Brashear
BBB Coordinators
——————————

The 37th Orange Rose Contest for Emerging Authors

Open to unpublished fiction in all genres.

Contest opens January 15, 2020

Deadline April 15, 2020

For more information or to enter the contest follow this LINK

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Beachcombing by Neetu Malik

March 26, 2020 by Neetu Malik in category Poet's Day by Neetu Malik tagged as after the rain, beach, rainbows

 

 Pebbles and seashells
 wash up 
 on my shore—
 I gather them,
 
 string them on lines
 in colors and patterns
 that come to mind,
 
 pin them to the sky
 with golden clasps
 and make rainbows
 when the rain is gone.
  
 © Neetu Malik

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Making Scents by Veronica Jorge

March 22, 2020 by Veronica Jorge in category Write From the Heart by Veronica Jorge

“That stinks!”

Smelling something unpleasant? Not really. It’s more an expression of disagreement or disappointment about a particular place or event, which demonstrates how often we use the sense of smell to reveal emotion and understand our world.

We ‘smell a rat’ when we suspect something is wrong.

We ‘sniff out a traitor’ and follow the clues that uncovers an enemy.

We wake up and ‘smell the coffee’ to become more alert and aware.

And perhaps the most famous example would be that of Marcellus, an officer in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, who states, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” to express that things are unsatisfactory.

Scientists tell us that fear emits its own scent which explains why people who are afraid of bees, cats, or dogs seem to attract them the most.
On the positive side, ‘stopping to smell the roses’ encourages us to take time to appreciate life. The arrival of a pleasant person, or relief from a difficult situation can be like smelling a ‘breath of fresh air.’

And men and women alike know the attractive power of colognes and perfumes. (But that’s the subject for a different type of post.)

So, what does all of this have to do with writing? Much! Like ‘Show Don’t Tell’, using the sense of smell can be a useful tool to create more emotional and dynamic scenes that engage the reader.

In Disney’s animated film, Tarzan, (1999), the gorilla Kala is led by her senses to a treehouse. There she smells danger. Her vision takes in the overturned furniture and destruction that denotes a fight took place. Following her senses, she discovers the baby Tarzan. Her heart goes out to the baby and she adopts him as her own. Sigh. Ain’t love grand?

Not one word of dialogue. But a masterful use of the senses to evoke emotion and create a powerful scene.

If my writing could draw someone in like the welcoming scent of a delicious pie, envelop them in a hypnotic aroma of coffee or tea, and keep them reaching for more, I will be in scentsational writer heaven!
See you next time on April 22nd.

Veronica Jorge

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