Hello, and welcome back! The Little League baseball season is in full swing, though if I expected to have a little more breathing space, I was wrong. We're still running around the county most nights and half the weekend. Oh well, at least it's only one sport. I think I'd go insane if we did this all year round.

Since I've finished my stack of May releases and before starting on the June books, I thought this time out I'd share the latest newsletter with you all, this one packed with good stuff for the writers among us, published and unpublished. And if you're not signed up yet for our newsletters, you get to see today what you're missing out on.

There are all sorts of websites out there with writing tips on them, but some are better than others. And if you're writing romance novels, you probably want to find material aimed in that direction, rather than more general writing tips.

Contemporary romance author Karen Rose Smith has a great article here on creating characters.

Need to figure out how to hook a reader from the beginning? Or how to handle point of view? You'll find that and more on Ann Jacobs, aka Sara Jarrod, aka Ann Josephson's site.

Stella Cameron used to host regular author tips chats at her site, and you can find those transcripts, as well as tips on writing compelling villains and getting the synopsis right, on her site.

Want to check out Vicki Hinze's Aids4Writers? Then you need to sign up for her list here.

You can even find a few ideas on getting started on my own site, under the header "Writing Tips".

Looking for industry news? One disturbing article came out last week. Let's hope it doesn't start a trend.

And for up-to-date news, my writers' forum may be something you want to check out. As news of the editor-hopping comes in, I post updates there.

Maybe you're looking for a good conference? New Jersey Romance Writers hosts a fabulous conference every fall.

Until next time, happy reading and writing!