Last week was a crazy one around here. Release weeks—The Renegat is out in all forms but audiobook, which I have no control over—are always busy, but we have a lot more irons in the fire right now, including one major project that I’m working hard on but can’t announce just yet. Stay tuned for that.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch started teaching her Romance Craft Workshop in Las Vegas, which wraps up this week. For those interested in attending one of the 2020 writing workshops Kris does, click here. And don’t forget about the study-along option for those who would rather learn from the comfort of their own homes.
Speaking of 2020 workshops, Dean Wesley Smith has opened up registration for the 2020 Business Master Class, again held in Las Vegas. You can read more about that here.
And on a personal front, I was installed last week as president of the Kiwanis Club of Lincoln City, a position that I wasn’t sure I’d still be able to fill after my surgery this spring. But thanks to my amazing husband and a very supportive community, I felt able to take on the position. And as a special bonus, it was my husband (in one of his last acts as Lieutenant Governor for our district) who installed me. He is a past president of the club, and we now have matching gavels. (I’m not sure they thought through the whole arming a Jersey Girl with a wooden mallet thing, but tradition, I guess. <grin>)
But I also made a discovery last week that put a damper on all the excitement. The incredibly talented Flora Plumb, who has narrated many audiobooks for us, died last July. I knew she had been undergoing cancer treatment, but her last email to me was optimistic and celebratory about a new stage role. After that email, I was both dealing with my own declining health and hopeful that no news was good news. Unfortunately, it was not.
Flora was not only talented, but a dream to work with. Kind, sweet, and consummately professional, I would have offered her any audio project she wanted. In fact, we held off on doing Protectors by Kris Nelscott in audiobook to work with Flora. She read the book and loved it, but was in the middle of treatment when we released the book in September 2017.
Her voice graces 20 WMG projects, including many of Dean Wesley Smith’s Thunder Mountain series novels (Thunder Mountain through Grapevine Springs) and some of the Seeders novels (Against Time and Sector Justice), some of the Diving series books (The Application of Hope, Becalmed, The Falls, and The Spires of Denon), as well as standalone projects including The Devin’s Churn, The Death of Davy Moss, Bleed Through, and The End of the World.
You can read a short obituary here.
I’m glad, at least, that her talents can continue to be appreciated in her work, and I am honored to have known her.
She will be missed by many, me included.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.