Author Visit: Melva Michaelian and Anna Carrasco Bowling

by Anna Carrasco Bowling, Melva Michaelian
Published by 47North, The Wild Rose Press Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Romantic Comedy

For Meg, happily ever after is a fairy tale. For Dominic, it’s the family business.

Aww, look at those faces. Those two crazy kids, together after years of pursuing their individual desires, now united and facing a future of rough drafts, edits, query letters, and, hopefully, building a family of happy readers. Oh, wait a minute. Wrong two crazy kids. I meant these two:

Melva Michaelian
Anna Carrasco Bowling

Not that Meg and Dominic, the lovers in Chasing Prince Charming don’t get up to a lot of hijinx (spoiler alert: they do) but it took these two kids to make those two kids, and the story behind that, well, I (Anna) will let Melva tell that one, in her own words.

From Melva:

Ah, it is finally here – the release date of Chasing Prince Charming, the first in a three-book series from The Wild Rose Press, and Anna and I are super-excited that our joint custody book baby is now on the market. It has been a wild ride to publication and a long journey to collaboration. Anna Carrasco Bowling and I (Melva Michaelian) first met in an intimate writing group held in a comfortable house in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. We wrote in the same room, enjoyed each other’s work, then went home to concentrate on our independent projects. The small writing group became smaller, and we became closer. While Anna reveled in historical romance, I concentrated my efforts on contemporary mystery and nonfiction.

We discovered a common thread in our prose, however, and that was the love for romance, stories that celebrated the strong bonds between people that can motivate, comfort, and guide people’s lives. When the opportunity to attend romance writers’ conferences arose, we motored off together, talking the whole two-hour drive about stories that were hiding in our heads, waiting to be written. At one such conference, we arrived a tad too early for breakfast at the hotel, and what choice did we have but to talk of the possibilities of setting a romance at just such a place? The story sparked before breakfast and developed when Anna and I showed up for the same cancelled workshop. We had a room to ourselves, and so we created our own workshop, cultivating characters and plotting their destinies. The whole book was outlined on our ride home. We have often thought that if we had to write a long book, we should rent an RV and ride across country since we do our best thinking on the road. We found ourselves with a particular dilemma, however; although we had both written with partners in the past, we were both generally used to writing alone. Now we had to answer to each other, so it was much like having a literary fiancé.

Our previous experiences working with co-writers had hit high and low points, so we were enthusiastic, although cautious, in the beginning stages, but soon we saw how well our writing styles meshed, mingled, and managed to produce satisfying and fun material. That lonely process of one person eking out words and sentences to create a tale became a duo. There was now someone who was not only interested in hearing new story ideas, but wanted to add to them. Writing partnerships are much like parenting; both halves of the partnership take certain responsibilities to lighten the burden of the other and have a great time doing it.

Back to Anna

Well said, Melva. Now that we have our first jointly written romance novel out in the world, the question we get most is, “what’s next?” Fortunately, we have some answers on that. Readers who take a shine to Meg’s agent, Kelly, whose crafty practices set Meg’s arc in motion, or Dominic’s sister, Heather, his partner in publishing, will be happy to hear we are hard at work at finding each of these gals their own happily ever afters. Kelly meets her match, a grumpy British actor, in the NYC subway, of all places, and Heather’s tale is a friends to lovers story. Heather’s hero, Rob, makes an appearance in Chasing Prince Charming, so consider that a bit of a coming attraction, pun intended. Speaking of attraction, here’s a sneak peek at an important moment for Meg and Dominic:

No woman would ever call Dominic a sissy in what he was wearing. He
had transformed the outfit from museum piece to pure
masculine sensuality. The coat fit his wide shoulders
precisely, the cut of the coat emphasizing the well-
defined contours of his chest, even though the shirt
featured a splash of lace down the front. The same lace
flounced out from the cuffs of the coat. She was almost
afraid to look below his beltline. What would be shown off there? She had to find out—for research.

Chasing Prince Charming

Besides writing books, both singly and together, Melva and I also teach writing workshops. Our first workshop, Save the Author, Save the Book aka Writing Through The Tears, Tempests, and Traumas, debuted at last year’s Connecticut Fiction Fest, sharing our experience about how we’ve kept writing when life gets tough. Right now, we are also in the early stages of our second workshop, our guide to creating a successful writing partnership. That’s where you come in, and we have incentives.

In the comment section below, leave a question you would like to ask a two-headed writer (aka writing team.) One lucky winner within the continental US will get a paperback copy of Chasing Prince Charming. But wait, there’s more. A second winner will receive a notebook and pen set, perfect for starting your own romance novel, or keeping track of books read/to be read. Winners will be announced on Anna’s blog, Typing With Wet Nails, on Monday, August 19th. We’d also love it if you would join us over at our brand new website, melvaandanna.com, for exclusive updates and assorted mischief.