In this issue:
• BOOK SIGNING: Bethel Woods Harvest Festival
• Edith Participates in Auction to Benefit Katrina Victim
• Q & A with Edith Layton - Online Exclusive!
• Regency Christmas Courtship Available for Pre-Order
• Gypsy Lover Available for Pre-Order

Book Signing at Bethel Woods Harvest Festival

On Sunday, October 2nd, Edith Layton will appear at The Fall Harvest Festival at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. Join her for "The Sweet Catskills" -- an event celebrating everything that's sweet about the Catskills: honey, chocolate, skiing...and romance! Edith will be signing autographs, have cover flats of her latest book Gypsy Lover on hand and have older and newer titles for sale from Sullivan County bookseller Hamish & Henry.

Edith will be joined by musical guest Will Hoppey and many arts and craft vendors. All will be located under a tent across the road from the Woodstock monument – site of the original 1969 Woodstock Festival. Booths are protected from the weather, with parking close to the vending area. Everyone is welcomed, but pets are not allowed. Hours are from 11:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

The Fall Harvest Festival began its seventh season on Sunday, August 14 at the corner of Hurd and West Shore Roads in Bethel, NY. The festival takes place on nine consecutive Sundays through Columbus Day Weekend. The festival features a farmers’ market, craft village, children’s activities, corn and hay mazes, pony rides and special activities. Food is available for purchase.

For event information, contact Denise Frangipane at the Gerry Foundation, 845-295-2448 or visit www.bethelwoods.us.

Edith Participates in Auction to Benefit Katrina Victim

To benefit a family in need, legions of romance writers are donating their works, thanks to a small group of concerned romance writers.

A mother/daughter writing team from New Orleans lost everything when Katrina hit – including, tragically, their dogs. Squawk Radio, a collective of romance writers who blog together, “adopted” Leslie Ferdinand and her mother and have set up a wonderful eBay auction to benefit Leslie's family in the wake of their enormous loss to Hurricane Katrina.

Leslie Ferdinand and her mom.
They write romance as Christine Holden.

To this end, signed collections of Edith’s books now are available on Ebay.

The books are donated and all the proceeds will go to Leslie’s family. There is no reserve, and bidding starts at a penny. This is a great opportunity acquire signed copies of some of Edith’s best, and in many cases hard-to-find, works while also directly helping a family who have found their enitre lives turned upside down.

Fans can go directly to the Edith Layton auction by clicking here.

Get the full scoop on Leslie by clicking here.

Updates to the cause can be found on the Squawk Radio blog.

In an amazing outpouring of support, many writers have donated their works. To see all the writers who donated and bid on their books, click here.

Q & A with Edith Layton - An Online Exclusive

Q: Why did you start writing romances?

EL: I started writing Regency romances, because I loved the work of Georgette Heyer.

Q: What kinds of books did you read growing up? How has your reading taste changed?

I read everything when I was growing up. Seriously. Comic books, bubble gum wrappers, my older brother and sister's books, the mysteries my father liked and the paperback sob sagas my mother favored. My parents also had a bookcase full of books that they had bought when they first married: complete sets of leather bound "classic" books. I particularly remember that they had the collected works of O. Henry, and Tolstoy.

After I finished everything else in the bookcase, I started on those. I loved O.Henry. Guess it still shows in my work. And I hated Tolstoy. True, I was only eight at the time. But I have never warmed to him since. But Dostoevsky and Gogol! Now, you're talking.

Q: What keeps you going? What motivates you at this point in your career?

I still like to tell stories. I don't know what I would do if I couldn't.

Q: How has the genre you're working in changed from the start of your career to present day?

Books are getting shorter. Is it the cost of paper, or that readers have shorter attention spans, or that there's too much happening around them for them to tuck into a longer work?

And editors say readers expect the story to start immediately now, no set-ups, no lingering prefaces establishing the mood, no "It was a dark and stormy night" anymore. (Sorry, Snoopy).

Q: Who are some of your favorite authors?

First: my friends, Barbara Metzger and Joan Wolf. And then, other friends and acquaintances -- too many to list. Not all my favorite books are romance though, nor are all written by writers I know, though I would love to.

I love Terry Pratchett -- madly. I read Kinky Friedman too. And Elizabeth Peters, Susan Elizabeth Phillips - and I reread Tolkein's Ring trilogy and Moby Dick, as often as I can.. And so many others, in every genre. In fact, the only books I am seldom mad about are the so called "mainstream" books.

Q: How has your personal life informed your writing life?

A writer's life informs her work in every way. Sometimes you write to get away from it, sometimes to capture it forever.

Q: What has been your proudest moment as an author?

Wow. Dunno. Every time I remember that I have actually published a book, even now, I am proud of it.

Q: What's the next step for you? What are you working on now?

Working on a "Real" Historical, set in the Fourteenth Century. Yes! Off with their heads and tournaments, castles. Banners, royal intrigue, and drawing and quartering. A dramatic novel about History and the fascinating people who made it. Which doesn't mean I've given up Romance, mind you. Not only is there a romance or two in it, but I am also still writing Historical Romances.

Q: How much do your fans inform your writing?

I think Readers who write to tell me they enjoy my work are just simply absolutely wonderful!! How kind of them. Sometimes, they write to remind me about characters I've forgotten about, to suggest that I continue with their stories. Sometimes, I do. But always, I try to write so that I never let them down.

Q: Finally-could you make a sweeping statement or two about:

The significance of romance (as a concept) to our culture.

Now that is an entire essay. I heard a speech Jane Anne Krenz once gave on the topic that was brilliant. She spoke about how the myths of romance are needed in today's world. I would add, now, more than ever.

What men can learn from your books.

What women like!

What women can learn from your books.

That Romantic love exists. Just you wait and see.

The every blurring line between romance books and erotica.

Yes. It is happening. I don't think I could write erotica, though. I tend to giggle. Although there are some very good writers doing it, the biggest difficulty with erotica is like the biggest problem with writing about a feast. You have readers that will go along with you and salivate for the roast and the duckling, but sometimes you lose them at the snails or the frog's legs. That is to say: one woman's meat can be another one's poison. If an author describes a sex act in detail and it is something a particular reader doesn't like, it can be a turn off, and can actually damage the reader's affection for the characters indulging, as it were.

The truth is I don't care to write lavishly, all the time, about how part A fits into slot B. You know what sex is about, and so do I. Unless I can bring something new to it, or use a sex act to illuminate a character or a situation or advance a story, I'm not interested in using up pages and pages to describe it.

After all, the ways men and women can fit together are finite. (And sometimes, fairly ridiculous.)

But the ways their lives can fit together - Ah, those ways are infinite, and beautiful.

Of course, I'm biased. I love Romance.

A REGENCY CHRISTMAS COURTSHIP AVAILABLE FOR PRE-SALE AT AMAZON.COM

Just in time for the 2005 season - an anthology of all-new Christmas novellas to warm the heart including "Dogstar" by Edith Layton, Wooing the Wolf; Lost and Found; Christmas with Dora Davenport; and Christmas Cheer. Penned by some of the best-known Regency authors around, it's the perfect stocking stuffer. Pre-order yours today by clicking here. ISBN: 0451216814 Signet

GYPSY LOVER ON PRE-SALE AT AMAZON.COM

Be the first on your block to own the latest novel by Edith Layton.

Amazon.com has made Gypsy Lover available for purchase in advance of its publication. Order now to ensure your copy arrives before the ink has barely had a chance to dry.

From the publisher of Gypsy Lover, comes this teaser:

A reputation in ruins . . .
Lovely Meg Shaw is a respectable governess in a wealthy household -- and it is her duty to bring her charge safely home when the headstrong heiress runs away. But the perils for a young woman alone on dark English country roads pale before the dangers posed by Daffyd Reynard -- a dashing, reckless gentlemen with gypsy blood, who shadows Meg's every step. Interested in learning more about Gypsy Lover? Subscribe by emailing kambri@ballyhoopromotions.net to receive exclusive updates available only to those who register.