Welcome to my website! I've decided a newsletter would be a great way to keep you up to date on my writing, my books and my life. So here we go...
Volume VI, Issue 1
Happy New Year! I hope your holidays were safe and joyful. Mine was perfect. I had my family surrounding me, we visited friends, I drank good wine and ate good chocolate and read good books... My definition of bliss.
But now it's back to reality—sort of. Here in Massachusetts, we got through all of November and December and half of January without any measurable snow, which seems remarkably unreal. The pond around the corner from my house has yet to freeze over, and I've spotted some geese bathing there. Geese should be much further south by now, but with our mild winter, they've decided to linger. One of the houses I jog past has pussywillows growing along the edge of the yard, and their branches are already tufted with soft gray puffs. Not a very wintry scene.
I've been working on a couple of new projects—gotta keep my agent busy. Meanwhile, February marks the launch of Harlequin's new imprint, Everlasting Love. Two titles will be released each month, and my first title for the imprint, The Marriage Bed, will be the seventh book published in this line. It's coming out in May, and I'm very excited about it. Much as I love writing comedy, this book is a gut-wrenching family drama, and I had a great time writing it. It deals with big issues: Can we justify doing the wrong thing if we've done it for all the right reasons? Is it possible to love a person if you can't forgive her?
Of course, it also deals with people: Bobby and Joelle, best friends from the wrong side of town who commit a life-altering act of dishonesty with the best of intentions. Years later, the repercussions of that one act threaten to tear their lives apart. And yes, the book spans thirty-seven years. Bobby goes off to Vietnam. Joelle discovers feminism. The two of them grow up together, build a life together, climb the economic ladder together. So when their deception is exposed, a great deal is at stake.
I know you'll enjoy this book. When its release date approaches, I'll send a reminder to everyone on the JudithArnoldReaders list. (If you're not on this list and would like to be, please email me at juditharnold@comcast.net and I'll sign you up.)
Happy reading—and a very happy 2007!
Volume V, Issue 2
First, a huge thanks to the readers who have contacted me through this website to let me know how much you love the Bloom family books and how eager you are to read the next installment. Although I don’t have a contract yet to write Bloom Moon, I do have good news—I have a new agent. Without an agent, Bloom Moon would never get published. With an agent...well, we’ll see. First, I have to find an enthusiastic publisher, and that’s what my new agent will be doing. My hope is that soon we’ll get Bloom Moon and the other romantic comedies I’ve been working on published and into the hands of my loyal readers. I’ll keep you posted.
In the meantime, while I was on my agent safari, I sold two books to Harlequin for their new "Everlasting" imprint, which is set to launch in 2007. The "Everlasting" concept entails love stories that explore not the start of a new romantic relationship but the changes a relationship undergoes and the challenges it faces over the course of many years. My first "Everlasting" novel, The Marriage Bed, is a powerful, emotional story about a couple who’ve been married thirty-seven years. Their marriage was based on a lie, which they both acknowledged and accepted, but all these years later the lie is exposed and they have to figure out how to save their relationship. Bobby and Joelle, the couple at the heart of the story, are poor kids who worked hard and built a good life for themselves and their children, and now face the prospect of seeing everything they’ve created fall apart. I absolutely love this story, and I hope you will, too! The Marriage Bed will be released in May of 2007. I’ll send a reminder to everyone on my email list. (If you’d like to be added to the list, please email me at juditharnold@comcast.net and let me know.)
My second "Everlasting" book is called Hope Street, and I’m working on it right now. It’s another wrenching emotional story.
Don’t worry—I’m not abandoning romantic comedy! I love writing funny stories. But I’ve enjoyed writing a couple of three-hanky reads for a change.
I hope you’re all having a wonderful summer. My family will be heading off for our annual vacation on Cape Cod soon. My idea of the perfect vacation hasn’t changed; just give me a beach chair under an umbrella, salty ocean breezes, a cold drink and a mile-high stack of books to read. I’ve got the books—all I need is the beach!
I hope you’ve all got plenty of good books handy, too. Happy reading!
Volume V, Issue 1
What happened to the Blooms?
Many of you have read Love In Bloom’s and Blooming All Over, my award-winning romantic comedies about sisters Julia and Susie Bloom, their meddlesome widowed mother Sondra, kvetchy Grandma Ida, their trying-to-find-himself brother Adam, their wannabe filmmaker cousin Rick, their egotistical Uncle Jay and his wife, the Bimbette, Julia’s sexy husband Ron Joffe, Susie’s earnest, basketball-loving, bagel-making boyfriend Casey, Grandma Ida’s caretaker Lyndon and all the other noodges and nudniks who populate the aisles and offices of Bloom’s, the world’s most fabulous delicatessen. Thanks to my readers’ enthusiastic response to these books, I planned to write a third book about the family.
Bloom Moon would deal with the new challenges faced by Julia and Ron once the honeymoon is over and a baby is on the way, Susie’s attempts to grow up and settle down, and—finally—the possibility of true love for cousin Rick, who has been carrying a torch for Susie’s roommate Anna over the course of the first two books. Like Love In Bloom’s and Blooming All Over, Bloom Moon would be full of all the things readers loved about the first two books: passion, humor, family and delicious food, surrounded by the bustling, colorful world of Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
Sounds like a plan, right? In fact, it sounds like another rollicking good book. The only problem is that Mira, the publisher of the first two books, said no.
The publishing business is a mystery, even to those of us who labor within it. Much as I’d love to write Bloom Moon and get it into the bookstores, I can’t force a publisher to publish it. If Mira isn’t interested, why won’t some other publisher publish it? Well, Mira published the first two books, and other publishers are reluctant to touch a property—in this case, the Bloom family—that one publisher has already claimed as its own.
I’ve been writing and publishing novels for twenty-three years. I’ve learned to accept, to shrug and move on. However, I keep hearing from readers asking, “If you can’t get your publisher to put out a third Bloom book, is there something I can do?” One devoted reader specifically suggested that I discuss this on my web site, so here I am, discussing.
All right, then. What can you do? You can send a letter to Mira Books (225 Duncan Mill Rd., Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9—Attn: Dianne Moggy) expressing your desire for more Bloom books. Or, if writing a letter seems too old-fashioned, you can send an email to judith_arnold@comcast.net and I will forward it to Mira for you.
You can also write to other publishers if you wish, and tell them that the Judith Arnold’s Bloom family is currently in limbo, looking for a new publisher to adopt them and bring them back to life. Most publisher addresses are available on their web sites; just Google them. Publishers like Berkley, St. Martin’s Press, Pocket Books, Warner and Bantam might be interested. Or they might not be, but if you readers wish to get a “Save the Blooms” movement going, this could help.
Right now, the only people who can keep the Blooms saga alive are you, my beloved readers. I’ve given it my best shot, but Mira doesn’t think there’s enough interest in the Blooms to keep the story going. Only you can convince them otherwise.
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Meanwhile, back at Judith’s desk… After a long, difficult stretch of time which included a death in the family but also the joy of seeing my older son graduate from college and start law school, I’ve got a new book coming out this June, called In the Dark. The first book in a continuity series, it’s a bit of a departure for me. As its title implies, it’s dark and full of suspense. No big belly-laughs in it, but lots of sexual tension and drama (and good food—it’s set in New Orleans.) In addition, I’ve been working on a bigger, more complicated book, starting and stopping, going back and starting all over again. It’s a comedy about strong women and the men who drive them crazy, as well as life in suburbia and recreational soccer. I’m feeling my way through it and I’m not sure it’s going to work out, but writing it has been fun. I’ve got some other possible projects rattling around in my brain, too.
And of course, I hope to write the next Bloom family book one of these days.
I am so grateful to all of you for loving the Bloom family as much as I do, and for continuing to enjoy my books. Happy reading!
Volume IV, Issue 1
I’ve been a bit tardy about updating my website. I’ve been busy with speaking engagements throughout the fall—in Houston, Rhode Island and Connecticut—and have more speaking dates lined up for the first half of 2005. So many, in fact, that for the first time in my life I’ve had to turn down a couple of invitations. I love visiting different parts of the country and speaking about my passions—writing, women’s fiction and romance novels, happy endings. I’m hoping those groups I’ve been unable to visit this year will invite me back next year, when my calendar will have more openings.
I also had a book out last November, a novella called “One For Each Night” in a Harlequin Anthology entitled Burning Bright. The other novellas in the anthology are by Anne Stuart and Maggie Shayne, who are not just two of my favorite authors but also two of my favorite people. Our stories revolve around three different religions that celebrate miracles in December. Anne, Maggie and I had a wonderful time creating this anthology, and you will have a wonderful time reading it.
The real reason I haven’t updated the website before now has to do not with my busy speaking schedule or my writing but with the publishing business itself. For most novelists, a writing career is a twisting, bumpy road, and recently I’ve hit a few bumps. I have several fabulous projects with editors at the moment, and I’m waiting. Waiting for editors to say yes, to give me a green light, to announce a publication date. That hasn’t happened yet. I have every faith it will, but...I’m waiting.
I kept telling myself that the minute I got one of these projects approved, I would update my website. But that “minute” I was waiting for has dragged on for months. This is the reality of a writer’s life. The good news I want to share here with you doesn’t obey my schedule. It arrives when it arrives—if I’m lucky.
Well, I am lucky. I’m lucky because I love all of these books, and working on them brings me joy. I believe that reading them would bring readers joy, too, which is why I’m hoping they’ll get picked up by publishers soon. But in the meantime, while I wait…I just keep writing. It’s what writers do.
Volume III, Issue 2
The winter I thought would never end has finally ended. The spring that set new rainfall records is slowly, reluctantly allowing the first glimmers of summer to warm my corner of New England. I’m a summer person. I’d much rather wear shorts than slacks, but I’m always about ten degrees colder than everyone else, so only in the summer do I get to wear shorts. (My sons, on the other hand, are hardy New Englanders. They wear shorts all year round.)
Not only has the weather grown warmer, but everything is in bloom—which brings me to the Bloom family. The new trade-paperback edition of Love In Bloom’s is now available, followed by the sequel, Blooming All Over. I don’t know what it is about the Blooms, but they simply won’t let go of me. Even with the new book now joining the original on the bookstore shelves, the Bloom kids—Julia, Susie, Adam and cousin Rick—still nag at me, insisting they have more stories they want me to tell. Usually, once I write a book, I’m happy to bid the characters farewell. I’ve enjoyed the time I spent with them, but I’ve gotten them to where they need to go—their happy ending—and I can leave them, confident that they’ll be fine. The Blooms don’t want to say goodbye, though. They’re still sticking around.
So maybe I should listen to the Romantic Times reviewer who wrote in her review of Blooming All Over, “Arnold continues the saga of the Bloom family (and its deli) with joy and verve. One can only hope that there will be many more books about these wonderful, rich characters and their fun world.”
In the meantime, though, I’ve got other projects in the works. And it’s nearly summertime. I’m going to have to pry myself out of my desk chair and get outside. If it’s warm enough for shorts, I’m celebrating!
Volume III, Issue 1
Happy New Year! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. My family celebrated the new year by belatedly joining the 21st century and purchasing cell phones. We’ve resisted as long as we can, but with our sons licensed to drive and therefore away much more often than they’re home, we like to know they can reach us if they need to. (Of course, we like to know we can reach them, too!) Although everyone in my family but me is a high-tech geek, we tend to add new gizmos to our lives long after everyone else does. Last spring I finally got a digital camera. Last winter we got a DVD player. I’m not sure what our next high-tech purchase will be—but I guarantee we’ll be the last on our block to own one.
As we nestle down into the heart of a New England winter, I will be working on a wintery novella scheduled for publication next December in a anthology called Burning Bright. The three novellas in the collection—the other two are by two of my favorite authors, Anne Stuart and Maggie Shayne—center on holiday activities and special, possibly magical, candles in a small Vermont town called Crescent Cove.
In the meantime, I’ve got another novella scheduled to hit the bookshelves in April. “Fools Rush In” will appear in Fool For Love, a Harlequin anthology about April Fool’s Day, also featuring novellas by best-selling authors Stephanie Bond and Vicki Lewis Thompson.
Flipping the calendar pages…I’ve got the trade paperback reissue of Love In Bloom’s slated for June and its long-awaited sequel, Blooming All Over, coming out in July. I can’t wait to spend some more time with the Bloom family!
In the meantime, though, I’ve got to get through the winter. Judith Arnold’s recipe for surviving cold weather: Fix yourself some hot tea or hot chocolate, curl up in a big chair with cozy blanket and a good book, wrap yourself up in the warmth and read!
Volume II, Issue 3
Well, I’m home from the RWA National Conference—and getting ready to head out for our family’s annual vacation on Cape Cod. I’ve got just enough time to squeeze in a newsletter before I go.
The RWA National Conference is a carnival. Thousands of members attend, some published, some hoping to join the ranks of the published and many publishing professionals: editors, agents, PR folks, booksellers, librarians—basically anyone who makes a living from the publishing industry. The conference schedule is crammed with workshops, book signings, media events, parties and expense account meals. I’ve got to admit I love those expense account meals and parties!
This year, my book Love In Bloom’s was a finalist for RWA’s Rita Award. I’d love to report that I won, but alas, I didn’t. Still, being a finalist was a huge honor, and I’m delighted that the Rita judges considered Love In Bloom’s worthy of consideration.
I wound up sitting for a number of interviews at the conference, in part because of the high profile of Love In Bloom’s, in part because I’m a native New Yorker and the conference was in New York, and in part—I’d like to think—because I’m a passionate champion of romance and women’s fiction. I love talking to reporters about what I write and why it appeals to readers. As a result of these interviews, I’ve been featured in articles in the Boston Globe, the Sudbury Town Crier and the Jewish Exponent. Upcoming articles will be appearing in Lilith magazine and the Long Island Press.
The thing I love best about the national conference is that it gives me a chance to get together with writer friends who live all over the country. We keep in touch throughout the year, thanks to email, but at the conference we have the chance to hug and talk face to face. This year, I brought my new digital camera to the conference with me, and I managed to take a few photos, which you can view in the new “Photo Album” section of my web site.
I came home from the conference armed with plenty of books. My idea of the perfect vacation is a beach to sit on and a stack of books to read. Cape Cod, here I come!
Volume II, Issue 2
Summer’s around the bend, but you’d never guess it. Here in New England, we’ve had so much rain, folks might mistake Boston for Seattle! Of course, Seattle doesn’t have all those three-hundred-year-old red brick buildings, the colonial history, the rolling hills and the Chowderfest (or, as we Yankees call it, “chowdah-fest.”) Our rolling hills are resplendently green, thanks to the nearly constant precipitation, and our lawns are growing faster than we can mow them.
Things will warm up this summer, though—and I’m doing my part with two hot romantic comedies scheduled for July and August. In July, Superromance will issue Right Place, Wrong Time, which is set amid the tropical splendor of St. Thomas. And in August, Mira will issue Heart On The Line, a laugh-out-loud comedy about two friends who aren’t quite friends, or maybe are more than friends, and are doing their best to figure out how to navigate their too-friendly almost-friendship through the ups and downs of the dating scene in Manhattan. Both Loretta D’Angelo and Josh Kaplan grew up on Long Island, where I grew up, and I’m hoping to schedule some booksignings on the island once the book is out. As soon as I have confirmations on the booksignings, I’ll post them on the “Announcements” page of my website.
You’ll note that I’ve already posted the big booksigning I’ll be participating in on July 16th at the New York Hilton. That booksigning will be sponsored by Romance Writers of America in conjunction with its national conference. Another event that will take place during the conference is the announcement of RWA’s Rita Awards, for the best romance novels published each year. This year, Love In Bloom’s is a Rita finalist for Best Single Title Romance. Winners will be announced on Saturday, July 19th. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
So, if I sing "Here Comes the Sun" enough times, do you think the rain will stop?
Happy reading! Judith
Vol II, Issue 1
Is it spring yet?
I’m finally emerging from what has been one of the rougher New England winters in recent memory. We got lots of snow—which is not exactly unheard of in New England—but also temperatures so severe the snow never melted between storms. I’m about 5’4” (well, my doctor tells me I’m 5’3½, but I like to round up) and some of the snow banks came nearly to my shoulder. I hope your winters were cold enough to remind you of how wonderful spring, summer and autumn are, but not as cold as mine!
I’ve survived this arctic season, though, and along with the early signs of thaw comes a warm, wonderful comedy I wrote called Hidden Treasures, which Superromance is releasing this month. Hidden Treasures is set in New Hampshire right after the spring thaw, when a small-town school teacher named Erica starts to dig a vegetable garden in her back yard and unearths a small treasure chest that sends the entire town into a tizzy. Everyone in sleepy, rural Rockwell assumes the box is worth a great deal, and they all want a piece of the action. Among the schemers are the owner of Rideout’s Ride, one of the town’s scuzzier bars; Derrick Messinger, a syndicated TV reporter whose last big broadcast was called “The Search For Jimmy Hoffa”; Professor Avery Gillman, an American history expert from Harvard; Toad Regan, the town drunk; and Jed Willetz, Erica’s sexy temporary neighbor, who thinks the box just might have been buried on his property instead of hers—and who thinks Erica herself might be a treasure worth pursuing. Grab a copy of Hidden Treasures if you want to escape for a few hours of laugh-out-loud humor.
In April, I’ll be speaking at the “Let Your Imagination Take Flight” conference, sponsored by the New England Chapter of Romance Writers of America. As part of the conference, I’ll be one of dozens of authors signing books which are sold to benefit literacy programs. The Literacy Booksigning will occur on Saturday, April 26th from 4-6 p.m. at the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Route 9 in Natick, Massachusetts. I’m hoping to have copies of Hidden Treasures and Love In Bloom’s on hand to sign and sell. Come and help us raise money for this important cause!
Happy reading! Judith
Vol. I, Issue 2
I’ve got to start with some VERY BIG NEWS: Publishers Weekly has named Love In Bloom’s one of the best mass-market paperbacks of the year! The 11/4 issue of PW includes the editors’ choices of the most important books of the year in a variety of categories, and Love In Bloom’s was one of only eight novels honored by the magazine in the mass-market category. If you haven’t read this book yet, pick it up so you can find out why PW thinks so highly of it. It’s still available in most bookstores, or you can buy it online. (Click on the Barnes and Noble link on the home page.)
And now, for Judith Arnold’s Excellent Adventure I decided it was time to pose for a new publicity photo. The photo I’ve been using (which you can see on the home page) is adequate but kind of stiff-looking. It doesn’t capture the real me; I’m a sweaters-and-jeans kind of woman, and the current photo just seems too well, stiff. Besides, my hair is a bit longer now.
So I scheduled a sitting with a photographer in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I found a legal parking space only four long blocks from her studio (a good sign!) and the snowstorm predicted for that day failed to materialize (an even better sign!) Once I climbed the stairs to the studio, which occupied a chunk of square footage on the second floor of a converted industrial building, I was transformed by a wonderful stylist who actually knew what to do with all those cosmetics brushes and tubs of color. She made me look like a much prettier sweaters-and-jeans kind of woman. I knew I’d like this stylist, because when I hired her on the phone, she’d told me she was an insatiable reader.
Then Susan, the photographer, slid some Cassandra Wilson and Rebecca Parris jazz CD’s into the stereo and started shooting. I felt glamorous! I felt like a celebrity! Actually, I felt very awkward. But Susan put me at ease, kept me laughing, and constantly assured me that I looked fine. I’ve viewed the proofs from the session, and lo and behold, I do look fine! Within a few weeks, I should have the new photo up in place on the home page, so you can all see how a sweaters-and-jeans kind of woman looks when she’s looking her best.
I hope you all survived Halloween and are gearing up for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a special holiday at my house, because my younger son was born the last week in November. Every year we serve a Thanksgiving dessert of pumpkin pie, apple pie and birthday cake. I am the official Thanksgiving host of my family; our house fills up with my parents, my mother-in-law and my older son home from college. I’m not the world’s greatest cook, but I do make a darned good turkey, and my apple stuffing is to die for. (My pies are pretty good, too. My younger son, the birthday boy, usually makes his own cake. He’s quite talented in the kitchen.)
I know I’ll enjoy Thanksgiving a lot more if I can finish the manuscript I’m currently working on before the holiday. The book, Right Place, Wrong Time, will be a July, 2003 release from Superromance. I’ve got the first draft done, and it’s looking good. I also just finished checking the proofs for Hidden Treasures, a laugh-out-loud comedy which Superromance will release in March. I’ll tell you more about it in my next newsletter.
Happy reading!
Judith
Vol. I, Issue 1:
Summer is finally winding down in New England, where I live, and I feel as if I'm getting back to normal--"normal" being a relative term. For me, at least, summer is not normal. The air outside is thick and hot and the air inside is freezing. (My husband's first love is air conditioning. I have told him that if we ever get a divorce, I'm naming the thermostat as a co-respondent.) My sons bicker over who gets to drive which car. The fridge fills up with crocks of homemade pickles, tomatoes that taste like tomatoes, melon that tastes like melon and frosty cans of soda. The noise level in the house, with my sons clomping around (they've got big feet), playing their guitars and blasting their CD's, distracts me. So do the cloudless blue skies stretching outside my office windows, and the happy shouts of children riding their scooters and skateboards up and down the street, and the jingle of the ice-cream truck that cruises our neighborhood every afternoon.
But I did get some work done this summer.
One goal I accomplished was to write a proposal for a sequel to Love In Bloom's. Love In Bloom's tells the story of Julia Bloom, her crazy family and the world-famous New York City deli her bossy Grandma Ida has ordered her to run. Ever since the book came out, readers have been demanding a sequel. They especially want to know more about Julia's younger sister Susie, the tattooed poet/pizzeria waitress who falls in lust with Casey Gordon, a gourmet bagel maker at the deli. They also want to know how Julia and Susie's mother, Sondra, copes with her life as a suddenly single woman, and whether Julia will drag her baby brother, Adam, into the business once he graduates from college, and whether her movie-making cousin Rick will become the next Quentin Tarantino-and, of course, whether she and Gotham Magazine columnist Ron Joffe will tie the knot. I was delighted when my publisher, Mira Books, enthusiastically agreed to release a sequel. If you enjoyed Love In Bloom's, mark your calendar: Blooming All Over should hit the bookstores in 2004.
(If you're a member of Romance Writers of America, I hope you'll keep Love In Bloom's in mind when you cast your votes for RWA's Favorite Book of the Year.)
I've got two terrific comedies scheduled for publication in 2003-Hidden Treasures (Superromance, March) and Heart On The Line (Mira, July). I'll tell you more about these books in later newsletters. Right now, I need to feed my younger son. My older son is currently away at college, getting his money's worth out of the school's meal plan, but my younger son is still at home--and he's chronically starving. He starts his day with a heaping bowl of cereal, downs a juice box on the way to school, barely survives until lunch, comes home ravenous at 3:00, noshes non-stop until around five, guzzles milk by the gallon, inhales dinner and an hour later is munching on cereal again, or popcorn, or Oreos. He's closing in on six feet tall and weighs 140 pounds with all his clothing on. I gain weight just thinking about what he's eating.
So I'll feed him-and I'll be back in a few weeks with more news from the Judith Arnold front. 'Til then, happy reading!
Judith