The Washington Post names AFTER HOURS ON MILAGRO STREET top 10 romance of 2022

I lived in DC for twenty years. My first summer there, I attended my first Romance Writers of America conference. Soon after, I joined the Washington Romance Writers, and attended weekend meetings and annual retreats where I got to learn how to be a romance writer.

Over the next twenty years, my non-writing friends cheered on my writerly aspirations and bought me drinks when I met my writerly goals. My first book, Lush Money, was published when I still lived in D.C. Just this month, I celebrated the three-year anniversary of my debut launch party at One More Page Books.

So for my book to appear today in The Washington Post in Adriana Herrera’s list of the Top 10 Best Romance Books of 2022 is truly meaningful. I hope it’s proof to all of those friends that their cheerleading and support was worth it.

Adriana, the amazing Latinx romance author of The Caribbean Heiress in Paris (one of my favorite books of the year), says about After Hours on Milagro Street:

Lust, animosity and forced proximity make for a potent cocktail in this emotional enemies-to-lovers romance… Lopez excels at penning strong women who know exactly what they want, but what makes this romance shine is the way she reveals the vulnerabilities and pain hiding behind Alex’s tough exterior….

Other books included in this top 10 list include ones from authors Tracey Livesay, Natalie Caña, Kennedy Ryan, Sarah MacLean, Christina Lauren and more!

Fight to Win: Inspiration for Writers at the Washington Romance Writers Retreat

On Sunday, April 14, I gave the closing speech for the Washington DC Romance Writers annual writers’ retreat. This is a meaningful weekend for me: since I was a wee-aspiring writer, this weekend was where I learned from bestselling romance writers, mingled with industry heavyweights, and found encouragement among a sisterhood of supportive authors. To be asked to give the closing speech was a knock-me-out honor. I wanted to do a good job for them. I hope I did. - Angelina

Photo credit: Jamaila Brinkley (L), Tara Kennedy (R)

I began the speech by putting on the above glasses and boa, and lip syncing (I know!!!) to the song “Fight to Win” by Goodie Mob. I did everyone a favor by miming only the first verse, then taking the glasses and boa off and promising never to do that to anyone ever again.

That song is “Fight to Win” by the Goodie Mob. You might recognize the singer as CeeLo Green. When I first heard it in 2012, I immediately thought, “That’s a song about writers.” It’s been my writing anthem ever since and I hope I can inspire you with it today.

When the Washington DC Romance Writers retreat organizer called in October to ask me to give the “inspiring” closing speech of the retreat weekend, it literally was the end of the worst week of my life. I put her off, told her that my husband and I were leaving for Kenya in a couple of days and could I call her when I got back. She agreed. But while I was away, I kept thinking, “How in the world can I give this speech?”

This Business is Hard

The first verse says:

I am fighting for the liberation
Of voices with something to say
Like many before me, for glory
You have to stand in harm's way

Well, to give this speech, where I had to stand was in Nora Roberts’s incredibly intimidating footsteps.

I joined RWA in 1998, I joined the Washington DC Romance Writers (WRW) soon after, and went to my first retreat in 2003 or 04. Back then, the retreat was in Harper’s Ferry, at this huge, historical, falling-apart hotel overlooking the joint of two rivers in West Virginia. The bugs and flooding showers were not the draw of the retreat – it was Nora Roberts. Nora Roberts was an active WRW member and would take a part in the retreat weekends, hanging out with the authors, allowing newbies like me to bug her. And Nora would give the closing speech.

Now, during her closing speech, Nora said things newbie-me did not want to hear. Among authors, among friends, she cursed like a sailor in her throaty voice and she talked honestly about that “harm’s way” that authors have to stand in. She told us about the readers who said derogatory things about her books and the media who constantly nudge, nudge, wink, winked her about the sex.

Nora did not sugarcoat things for us. What she did, in this protected space, was tell us the truth. The truth: This is a business. And this business is hard.

• You will write a book, construct the perfect baby, and the first agent or editor or beta reader you show it to will tell you that it’s awful. You will shove it under the bed crying because your characters will never have their say in the world.

• You will do the work and have the deal and put out the books – and you still won’t be able to quit your day job.

• You will write the books and make the money – but because of the color of your skin or the gender of who your character loves or the truth about our world that your character stands for – you will have to fight tooth and nail for what other authors take for granted.

But this is the journey. To write, to liberate your voice and say what your voice demands that you say, you have to fight. You have to fight the demons of racism and bias. You have to fight that interior voice that tells you you’re not good enough, and that you’re not worthy. You have to fight the siren of the fourth season of Schitt’s Creek on your Netflix queue tempting you out of your writing chair.

You have to stand in harm’s way.

Imposter Syndrome

The next verse of the song is:

I’m no savior, just a soldier
Soldier with an order
So I have no choice but to trust the God
Cause it must be done

Now when Angele, the retreat organizer, first asked me to give this speech (at the end of the worst week of my life), I gave this crazy laugh and I said, “Angele, this isn’t imposter syndrome. I am an imposter.”

This ‘worst week of my life’ began with a flare up of sciatica that I thought had gone away. Sciatica is a daunting and chronic back/leg pain, it’s awful and it’s boring. Blah. But I had this flare up a week before I was going to Kenya. Where we were doing a horseback safari.

Now, I began writing as a young woman. Like, of 5. Writing was always that thing I could do and in the fifth grade – as a pragmatic little Virgo – I told my mom that I wanted to be an author but I didn’t think I could make money at it. So she recommended I become a newspaper journalist. I wrote for newspapers and magazines – a story of mine is in the Newseum – but after I had children, I decided I was going to take my long-held adoration and admiration for romance novels out of the closet and start writing them.

I have been writing romance on-and-off for 18 years. Because I was raising kids, I put more energy into writing than publishing. But I worked on plot and character development and the art of ass in chair. I went to retreats and conferences and pitched to industry professional. I made amazing author friends who let me learn from their writing and publishing journeys.

I put in my 10,000 hours and with those 10,000 hours, I wrote a book about a billionaire businesswoman and a modern-day prince with an impoverished kingdom that got me an agent. My phenomenal agent, Sara Megibow.

But when Angele asked me to give this speech, I was a once-young writer who felt old with her sciatica, who had an amazing agent and book I believed in, but no publishing deal. I was an imposter to believe I could stand here and give you this speech.

But the thing about being an imposter…aren’t we all one? We make up people and towns and universes to trick readers into feeling good. If that doesn’t make us all frauds, I don’t know what does. And in this industry – and I would argue, in all of them – no one feels like they’ve “arrived.” The written-a-book writer wants to publish. The published author wants to earn out. The earning out author wants to make a list. The list author wants it to happen again.

None of us are saviors. We’re all soldiers with an order. And that awesome, awful, inspiring, pain-in-the-ass order is to overcome our imposter syndrome every day and say yes to the words, because it must be done.

Courage and Foolishness

The next verse of the song is:

You should be proud for the courage
The courage to think out loud
You’ll find your way it you’re foolish enough to be faithful

Is there any better way to describe a writer than someone full of courage and foolishness?

Three days after the flare up of my sciatica, I got a text from my agent. “Can I give you a call?” she asked. The events of the previous year had inured me to bad news, so I was ready and not ready when the phone rang. Sara said, “Angelina, I’m just going to say it, your three-book deal fell through.”

See, at the beginning of the worst week of my life, when the sciatica flared up, I had a three-book deal. It was my first deal, and I thought I’d squeaked under the wire to have my first publishing contract before I turned 45. Not so. The publisher decided that he no longer wanted to publish romance. Sara suggested that we both have drinks and we’d coordinate a plan of attack in the morning. I hung up, fell face first in the couch, and my two teenaged sons took amazing care of me until my husband got home.

I’ve been a member of WRW for 18 years. And because of all this knowledge I’ve gleaned from WRW authors willing and enthusiastic to bolster unpublished authors, I knew that this is what happens. Deals fall through, editors leave in the midst of your revisions, and agents sign you then drop off the map. It’s a business, and it apathetically and indiscriminately breaks your heart. But what I also learned from WRW, from going to these meeting and talking to these authors, is the foolishness to be faithful. WRW preaches the resiliency of continuing to do it. What I learned here helped me believe that no matter what happened, I could still make this career a reality.

Every writer who is struggling: Be proud that you have the courage to think out loud. You have the courage to put to paper and show to people what so many others can’t. So many people have the idea to write a book or they’re going to write a book or they’ve written half a book. You’re writing a book or you’ve written a book. You have the courage to think out loud and the foolishness to be faithful.

It's Surely Not Impossible

The final verse is:

Believe me, it won’t be easy
But it's surely not impossible
And if they won't listen
Save your breath and save yourself

Sara’s call was on the Thursday of the worst week of my life, so Friday found me at a commiseration lunch with my girlfriend, one cocktail in, plenty more planned, when my phone rings. It’s my 20-year-old son’s psychiatrist. She asks me if I can come pick him up because she’s not comfortable with him leaving alone. As my friend is driving me to the psychiatrist’s office, I say, “Can you imagine if the worst news I get this week ISN’T the loss of my 3-book deal?” It was prescient. The psychiatrist was doing some testing with my son, and she said that his feelings of hopelessness and self-harm were so high, she wasn’t comfortable with him leaving alone.

My incredibly intelligent, successful, plans-to-be-a-physicist son came home second-semester of his freshman year in college because he was suffering from social anxiety disorder that we didn’t know he had. Essentially when he has to deal with issues that trigger his disorder – for my son that’s professors and peers, classwork and emails – he is flooded with chemicals that tell him he is facing a bear. That anxiety-ridden fight-or-flight sensation then gets paired with, “Everyone else can do this. Why am I such a freak? I must just be a bad person.”

Him coming home changed the straight-and-narrow path he assumed for himself, the path my husband and I assumed for ourselves, and sent us into a journey into mental health that we are still on. There are great days and there are real bad days. And this day, at the end of the worst week of my life, was obviously the worst.

The weird thing is, once that scary word of suicide was out there, it released a pressure valve for him. He talked to a crisis counselor and his therapist, we all worked together with his therapist to come up with a plan when or if this happens again, and he changed medications. Most importantly, he didn’t feel alone anymore. And I was able to stop tip-toeing around this concern that had been making me short of breath since he’d come home, and get the language for how to deal with it.

What in the world does this have to do with writing?

All of this – handling the first real trauma of our little family, realigning what we thought our lives were going to look like, navigating our country’s fucked up mental health system to get our son the help he needed – happened while I was writing Lush Money (previously called The Billionaire’s Prince), editing Lush Money, submitting Lush Money, getting an agent for Lush Money… My professional life was shooting fireworks while my family life was tough.

I’ve been in this organization long enough to know how much trauma and disarray and heartbreak authors deal with while they’re writing happily ever-afters.

So on the Monday, after a week of constant pain, a loss of 3-book deal, and my son suggesting the worst thing a mother can imagine, Angele calls asking me to give an inspiring closing speech.

Of course, I said yes.

Because as unlikely as it was, as inappropriate as it was for me to even consider giving it, the request for me to give this speech was a ray of sun. It was the light at the end of the tunnel. It was the courage and foolishness to believe that, since this was the worst week of my life, things could only get better. Right?

I am sciatica-free, my son is taking three classes at NOVA with plans to take a full course load in the fall, and in February, I signed a three-book deal with Carina Press. My first book, Lush Money, will come out in October.

Believe me, it won’t be easy
But it's surely not impossible
And as soon as you see sunlight again
Get up and fight to win.

Thank you.

Pics from an incredible retreat weekend

Me and Keynote Speaker Alexis Daria

Saturday night dance party! Photo credit: J.T. Bock

Alisha Rai, Gigi Thomas and Alexis Daria

Lunch with author friends

Keynote speaker Alisha Rai

Click To learn more about the Washington DC romance Writers…

A Shout Out to My Arrow Fanfic in USA Today's "Happy Ever After"

Guess who was mentioned in USA Today's romance blog, "Happy Ever After?" THIS GIRL!

Denny S. Bryce, HEA columnist and romance author, first interviewed me in 2015 about my Arrow fanfiction story Desperately Seeking. I didn't realize at the time that it was her first interview for her inaugural blog about fanfiction. Three years later, she's revisiting her favorite stories and chose mine to lead her column. 

Excerpt from USA Today's "Happy Ever After" blog by Denny S. Bryce. Roxanne was my pen name.

I've known Denny for a few years now and she's a hardworking author as well as a generous soul -- she's given so much of her time and energy to our writers' organizations, the Washington Romance Writers and Romance Writers of America. I don't know what I did to fall under this woman's special light, but I will be eternally grateful.

I wrote Desperately Seeking after a three-year writing hiatus. This story and Wattpad helped re-ignite my love of writing; it gave me my creative soul back. So having this story recognized and praised this way is tremendously gratifying. And comes just when I need it. I'm currently riding the roller coaster of submitting my book to agents, having one agent tell me she loves the concept while another agent tells me my characters are unlikeable, and writing confidence is a shaky thing right now. 

Denny's praise of my story three years later helps me believe that all these hours I've spent at the keyboard aren't a waste of time.

Check it out.

Must-read fan fiction: Denny S. Bryce celebrates 3rd anniversary of fanfic recs with ‘Arrow,’ ‘Bones,’ ‘Farscape,’ ‘Firefly’ and ‘Scandal’

by Denny S. Bryce

Can you believe it? I’ve been hanging out here at Happy Ever After, sharing fan fiction recommendations since Feb. 18, 2015, people. That’s three years! And I still haven’t covered nearly as much fic as there is out there!

Now, you know, I do have some favorite genres I simply can’t back away from. You’ve seen my unabashed love of all things BtVS from my very first post. I also have a weakness for anything and everything sci-fi, or with vampires, and I like my fan fiction heroes superhuman, alien or Supernatural. (And yes, that was a shout-out to the boys!)

For this month’s column, I decided to do a throwback fan fiction post. So, I scoured a few of my early columns from 2015 and am sharing some of those recs, here again, this month.

Happy anniversary to me! (Click to keep reading...)

What to Ask An Agent Before You Sign

Imagine getting "the call": an agent calls and offers to represent you. After you scream and cry and run around the house, what do you ask the agent to make sure that this is the person with whom you can entrust your career?

I had no idea, either. 

With a completed book under my belt and a full manuscript out to agents, I realized I needed to be better prepared. So I took to Facebook, where I'm connected to a supportive and information-rich network of authors thanks to my years of membership with the Washington Romance Writers of DC, and asked the following question:

Below are some of the phenomenal answers. Romance and fantasy author Fallon DeMornay pointed me to this fantastic blog from her agent, Jim McCarthy of Dystel, Goderich & Bourret, and many of the questions are from that truly helpful article.

• Why do you believe in my work?

• What is your plan to build my career beyond this first novel?

• How involved will you get in revisions before you submit it to an editor?

• What about my book did you respond to?

• How much revision do you think will be necessary? Are you expecting minimal changes or a major rewrite?

• What's your editorial style?

• How long have you been with your agency? What support do you have in your agency? What connections do you have to the romance world?

• How many clients do you have?

• What is your typical response time to email/phone calls?

• How do you like to communicate (email vs. phone)? And how often do you communicate during a submission?

• What happens if you don't sell this book? Revise? Something new? Part ways?

• How many editors do you go to before giving up? How does your submission process work?

• What percentage of projects that you sign do you sell?

• How long is your average client relationship?

• Who do you work with to sell foreign/film rights? Do you handle contracts? Rights? If not, who does?

• What does your agency agreement look like?

• Can I speak to one or two of your clients about their experiences working with you?

Historical romance author Sally MacKenzie also shared with me a blog she'd written about choosing an agent. She has wonderful suggestions for things to consider before you sign on the dotted line.

Did I want an agent who read my work and gave me editorial feedback or one who considered her job only to sell? Was it important to me to be with a Big Name Agency? Would I mind being a small fish in a big pond? Would I care if I didn’t work with my Big Name Agent but with her assistant instead? How did I want to communicate with my agent—snail mail, phone, email—and how quickly did I want to hear back from her? Was she based in New York City—and did I think her location was at all important? Did I care if my agent was male or female?

I still plan to do all the screaming and crying and running if and when I get "the call." But thanks to some dear friends, I'm better armed to make sure that the agent I sign with can help me keep my dream going.

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Want to learn more about the writing journey from unpublished to (hopefully) published?