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June 18, 2007

Our Last Hurrah

In early 2004 I formed a life-altering (in a good way) friendship with two incredibly wonderful women; Michelle Cunnah and Alesia Holliday. We came together on a project that turned out the be short-lived, but we bonded like mad and adored each other to pieces. One day, it occurred to me that it would be a lot of fun to do a group blog together. We all wrote chick lit, and we were all fabulous, so why not? From this idea Literary Chicks was born, launched in August 2004, and to my knowledge it was the first author group blog out there, although it certainly wasn’t the last. The three of us came together and blogged like mad, telling stories of Choppy Thoughts and Authors for Dinner (no, not in a cannibalistic way) and Slagroom. We had a great time, and hardly any readers, but we didn’t care. We were having too much fun.

Then, in January of 2006, we decided it was time to expand. But who to bring in? We had very strict requirements. They had to be people we all loved, people whose work we respected, and people who we knew would bring the energy we wanted for the LC. We chose Eileen Rendahl because we loved her writing, and we’d all met her at the 2005 RWA National Conference in Reno, NV, and fell madly in love with her; Beth Kendrick, because her books were also wonderful, and her sense of humor fit in so nicely with ours when she guested in April of 2005; Whitney Gaskell because I'd been a huge stalker fan of hers for years, and dragged her into our wild bunch whether she wanted to come or not. In the same way that Michelle, Alesia and I bonded originally, the new additions came in and rocked the house, making the LC even more popular than it had ever been. Which makes sense. They’re fabulous.

It’s probably obvious to you now why I’m reminiscing. Some of you may have noticed a little bit of a slowdown here at the LC recently, and there’s been good reason. Alesia’s Atlantis series (written as Alyssa Day) has skyrocketed, and she’s been hit with all the hard work that comes with well-earned success. Eileen’s newest book, Un-Veiled, just came out, plus she’s been working on a few projects which will become public soon, but in the meantime, just know – they’re awesome. Michelle’s working hard on her new YA series, the first of which will be called Almost Fabulous, due out Winter 2007, and don’t let the title fool you – it’s fully fabulous. Beth has a number of projects in the hopper (including her YA series written as Beth Killian), and the dogs, and the golf cart. Whitney’s working on a YA series as well, written as Piper Banks, not to mention her women’s fiction is still going strong, with Mommy Tracked coming out in August. And as for me... well, I’ve got a few things in the hopper as well. All of it combines to create the situation we’re dealing with now – how to find time for it all.

At the end of many long discussions about how much we love each other and the Chicklets, it came down to this – there just weren’t enough hours in the day. There are children, books, husbands, golf carts, new projects, cross-country moves to consider. And while we all enjoy each other and you guys so much, in the end, we had to make the hard decision to discontinue Literary Chicks.

Now, it’s not a total shutdown. All the archives will be here, and the site will remain, but we’re all going to be concentrating on everything else we’ve got to concentrate on. So this week, we’re each of us going to be posting one last time to reminisce, to appreciate you all, and to say goodbye. We’ve had such a great time with you all, and trust us, we wouldn’t leave you if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. But don’t worry – you’ll be able to find us all at our various homes on the web, and we’ll let you know in our goodbye posts where to find us and how to keep in touch, and we really hope you will. While the six of us have had so much fun together, it was you all that made us complete, made us the LC, and as Dorothy said to the Scarecrow, we’re going to miss you most of all...

Thanks so much for all the good times,

Lani (and the Literary Chicks)

Posted by Lani at 6:00 AM | Comments (18)

Comments

Posted by: B.E. Sanderson at June 18, 2007 8:21 AM

Posted by: heidi at June 18, 2007 9:48 AM

Posted by: hollygee at June 18, 2007 11:10 AM

Posted by: Janina at June 18, 2007 1:47 PM

Posted by: Theresa at June 18, 2007 3:21 PM

Posted by: Pam W. at June 18, 2007 6:55 PM

Posted by: Eileen at June 18, 2007 8:16 PM

Posted by: Terri at June 18, 2007 8:56 PM

Posted by: Janet at June 19, 2007 12:19 AM

Posted by: Phyllis at June 19, 2007 3:34 PM

Posted by: Jennifer at June 19, 2007 4:32 PM

Posted by: RandomRanter at June 19, 2007 6:09 PM

Posted by: laurenjharwood at June 20, 2007 8:49 AM

Posted by: heidi at June 20, 2007 9:32 AM

Posted by: Sheri at June 20, 2007 5:03 PM

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Posted by: Amber at June 21, 2007 1:17 PM

Posted by: Aghast at June 22, 2007 3:56 PM