One Last Time: Part 2 - by Sarah Raplee

In yesterday's Part 1 post , Judith reminisced about how she and I started RTG, how we couldn't have done this for fourteen years without all the contributions of our amazing Genre-istas, and how we became a community of colleagues and friends over the years.

In Part 2, I want to remember some of the things we did that we couldn't have imagined in the beginning.

For example, Judith and I often met at a little cafe and candy shop called Moonstruck Chocolate in Lake Oswego, Oregon. Early on, we came up with the idea of doing an Author Reading Event with local Genre-istas for Valentine's Day. It was a great success!

When the Outlander television series (of Diana Gabaldon's famous Time Travel Romance Books) aired, we recruited Author Michele Monkou to write weekly episode reviews for us.

Decades: A Journey of African American Romance

When Romance Author Patricia Sergeant told us about a year-long effort by twelve black Romance Authors to each write a Historical Romance book set in consecutive decades of Black history, we jumped at the chance to feature them as monthly Guests for a year. I love learning about history, and I learned a lot that I didn't know about our own country's history and the challenges overcome as well as the contributions made by Black Americans over 120 years. That knowledge has given me a better understanding of where we are today in this complicated country.

We launched a sister blog, Free Reads from the Genre-istas, that lasted a couple years. Those who wanted to could post free short stories, flash fiction, and poetry there to share with readers. Some of our stories later made it into anthologies.

These are just a few of the ways Romancing the Genres has more than met our original expectations. One of the statistics Judith forgot to mention is that we have had visitors from all over the world, and not just the English-speaking world: Russia, Japan, the European Union, Mexico, South Korea, Indonesia, India, Malasia, Vietnam, Argentina, El Salvador - the list goes on and on.

We wanted to be an inclusive, international blog for writers and readers - and we've achieved that goal.

That should make all our hearts happy.

Happy reading and Writing, 

Sarah Raplee and Judith Ashley

One Last Time, Part 1 - by Judith Ashley

There are so many, many memories that pop up or flow through my mind when I think back over the past 14 years. We met for tea and talk at the Border’s in Beaverton in February 2011. We put together the concept of Romancing the Genres and launched it less than 90 days later. Why? Because “blogging” was The Way to get noticed, become visible to readers. We commiserated on our reality that we didn’t want to blog every day, or every week.

What about once a month?

What if other authors were like us?

Those two questions started the brainstorming process that showed us we had a plethora of common views of the world. Our blog would have authors from diverse backgrounds  who wrote in a variety of sub-genres…initially romance sub-genres and then we dropped the romance genre as the over-arching genre and combined it with mystery, suspense, thrillers, etc.

As of today we’ve had 1,447,008 page views with 22,149 comments left and  so far this month, 53,541 have stopped by.

So many changes and challenges came our way. We managed to overcome them all with a little help (actually a lot of help) from the Genre-istas. When the Blog Queens aka Sarah and Judith put out The Call, one or more people stepped up.

Lynn Lovegreen and Marcia King Gamble took over individual months recruiting guests.

Paty Jager and Marcia King Gamble interviewed authors for our weekend guest spots. Paty the 3^rd weekend and Marcia the 4^th.

Marcia King Gamble organized our Facebook Party something the BQs had no idea how to put together.

Diana McCollum helped refresh and update our banner when we decided to expand our overarching focus to all genres not just romance. She has also stepped up with posts featuring images reflecting the theme of the month.

Many others have stepped up to help over the years. You all have our heartfelt thanks!

JUDITH ASHLEY

Although I don’t think it was a conscious decision, we did create a community, a family in some ways. Over the 14 years of our run, we’ve celebrated each other’s writer triumphs and helped promote each other’s book launches. We’ve also stood as friends when we’ve encountered life’s challenges. We’ve experienced LIFE’s challenges with the death of loved ones, unexpected illnesses and on the other side of LIFE, the sweetness of babies being born. Both Sarah and Judith have great grands, and many Genre-istas have welcomed new babies into their families.

We've had authors from all over the English-speaking world join us on this amazing journey. That was a dream come true! 

And some have become good friends. That was an unexpected gift from  RTG. I never thought I could have a close friendship with someone I never met in person. I was so wrong!!!

Stay tuned for Part 2, RTG's last post (or half-post?) tomorrow.

In Love and Light, Judith Ashley