Celia Roman's Blog

Incorporating local legends into fiction

Note: First published in my newsletter on 1 February 2025.

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When I first created the Sunshine Walkingstick story world back in 2015, I drew heavily from a wide variety of mythologies, including local lore, Cherokee and Greek mythologies, and Legends of Charlemagne by Thomas Bullfinch.

For example, several local legends relate to the building of the Lake Burton dam in the 1910s. Whole communities were uprooted during construction, including the thriving town of Burton. The residents were forced to abandon their homes, churches, schools, and stores. Even their cemeteries were left behind, though the bodies were reinterred elsewhere before floodwaters swept the town away.

One local legend says those buildings are still down there, intact, and that not all the cemeteries were emptied. A spooky thought, eh?

Another has to do with the dam itself. According to legend, a giant, man-sized catfish lives in the deepest part of the lake, near the dam. Divers have reported seeing large shadows lurking at the edges of their vision, and there isn't a local fisherman who hasn't tried to catch the legendary fish.

I don't know if any of the legends surrounding Lake Burton are true, but the catfish legend provided a fun foundation for one of the subplots in Greenwood Cove, Sunny's first novel-length story.

The post Incorporating local legends into fiction appeared first on Celia Roman.

Today Only: Download Hundreds of FREE Romance Books

Today 22 July 2025 only, download hundreds of free Romance books across multiple genres, from Sweet and Small Town Romances to SciFi, Fantasy, and Paranormal Romance to Dark Romance and Romantic Suspense.

I'm offering four books today across my various pen names:

Greenwood Cove (Sunshine Walkingstick, Book 1) The Alien Warlord's Fated Mate (Warlords of Zephyria, Book 1), written under my Lucy Varna pen name Tempered (Daughters of the People, Book 3.5), also written under my Lucy Varna pen name The Vampire's Pet (The Vampyr, Book 1), written under my pen name V.R. Cumming

There's lots and lots to choose from today, so drop by, select your genre or category, and download new-to-you books to your heart's content.

Happy reading!

The post Today Only: Download Hundreds of FREE Romance Books appeared first on Celia Roman.

Two Upcoming Releases and a Change to the Comments

My next release will very likely be a Paranormal Shifter Romance called The New Bear in Town (A Bear Mountain Shifters Story), to be published under my other pen name, Lucy Varna.

I thought long and hard about publishing that story under this pen name; however, it's just different enough from established series to warrant publication elsewhere. For one, the romance, between human Junie Daves and bear shifter Rafe Presley, takes place entirely within that book, unlike the romances in the Sunshine Walkingstick Series and Vanessa Kinley, Witch PI Series. And for another, the romance is the central plot while the mystery is a subplot, also unlike Sunny and Nessa.

The New Bear in Town is set to release on 28 September 2025. You can preorder The New Bear in Town at Amazon.

After due consideration, I thought it past time I released news about another forthcoming book, a fifth installment to the Vanessa Kinley Series, Even Rune Witches Get the Blues.

This story picks up where the fourth book leaves off, plus or minus a few weeks. I haven't firmed up the outline yet, though I know it has something to do with underground magic, a new singer at Kinley's, and Nessa and Nick's Dad, at least in a peripheral way.

I've set up a very long preorder to give myself time to find a cover designer, as the one who designed the current covers left cover designing for greener pastures. Right now, the (very tentative) release date is 28 March 2026, though if the stars align, I'll release it earlier. You can preorder Even Rune Witches Get the Blues at Amazon.

Finally, due to an overwhelming influx of spam comments, I was forced to set a hard limit to the amount of time after a post is published during which comments can be left. That used to be open-ended with no expiration. Now, thanks to Russian and other spambots, I've set that time period to 45 days, meaning comments can be left on a post up to 45 days after it's published. After that, comments are closed. Hopefully that will cut down on the number of spam comments I have to delete every week.

Thanks for your understanding! Don't forget to check out the two new preorders.

The post Two Upcoming Releases and a Change to the Comments appeared first on Celia Roman.

Why Vampire Alley will (probably) be Sunny’s final novel

Today I'm pulling back the curtain and giving you a peak at what goes on behind the scenes. Specifically, I want to share some data supporting why I decided to stop writing books in the Sunshine Walkingstick Series.

Before I get into that, here's some background.

Sunny's first novel, Greenwood Cove, was a side project I wrote while publishing under two other pen names, Lucy Varna (SciFi and Fantasy Romance) and V.R. Cumming (Dark Fantasy and Paranormal Romance). It took two years to write, almost to the day. I loved the story so much, that I decided to extend it into a series.

At the time, I thought Sunny's stories would be different enough that they would need to be published under another pen name, so I created this one (Celia Roman) for just that purpose. In January 2017, I published Greenwood Cove, followed in February by its sequel, The Deep Wood. Later that year, I wrote and published Sunny's third novel, Cemetery Hill.

This pen name has had a lot of ups and downs, and I do mean a lot. I've never been able to publish consistently under this name and trying to has pushed me into burnout again and again. I know why (in short: I abandoned what worked for me) and have been trying to remedy those problems in the past six to nine months. Those efforts have paid off, but that's a story for another day.

Last year, I published Sunny's sixth novel, Vampire Alley. Despite plans to write three additional novels and several shorter stories, I decided to end the series there, on a very poignant note. The reason has less to do with my ongoing battles with burnout and more to do with the financials, and that has to do with another series entirely.

Vanessa Kinley, Witch PI

Between publishing Greenwood Cove and Vampire Alley, I wrote and published another series, Vanessa Kinley, Witch PI.

Nessa started as an idea based on premade cover art crafted by Nocturne Cover Arts. This later became the cover for the first novel, Between a Witch and a Hard Place.

Before finishing that first novel, I had created a rough outline for a four-book series as well as branded titles. Later, I also wrote a prequel novella to use as a reader magnet, The Single Witch's Guide to Online Dating.

Roughly around the time that I was developing this series, I attended a 20Books to 50k author dinner in Atlanta, led and organized by bestselling SciFi and Fantasy author Craig Martelle. There, I met, among others, bestselling Dark Romance author Angel Lawson.

I didn't know anything about her at the time. So, when I was seated across from her at dinner, I bounced the Nessa idea off her and two other writers. (If I had known how successful she was, I might've held my tongue.) In my mind, I'm terrible at marketing and branding, so I really needed (I felt) the validation of feedback. She and the other authors I spoke with loved the covers and thought the titles were very well-branded, which encouraged me to finish writing that first book.

That book was published in November 2021. And then I burned out. Hard. It took roughly 15 months to finish and publish Nessa's second novel, A Witch and Her Familiar; three more months to get the third novel, Black Witch Rising, out; and another ten months to release the fourth and final novel, A Witch Called Justice.

In fact, that fourth novel was released just three months prior to Sunny's sixth novel, Vampire Alley, which factored prominently into my decision to stop writing in the Sunshine Walkingstick Series.

Comparing Timelines and Financials

To recap:

-- Sunny's first novel was published in January 2017. The series now encompasses a prequel novella, six main-series novels, and several shorter stories.

-- Nessa's first novel was published in November 2022. The series now includes a prequel novella and four main-series novels.

All the main-series novels in both series have earned out, meaning the financial outlay I invested in covers, etc., for each book has been covered by sales.

But here's where the series diverge. The first clue lies in the number of preorders: the final Nessa novel had 1.7 times more preorders than the final Sunny novel. Upon its release, A Witch Called Justice had paid for itself in preorders alone. Every penny it's made since then has been pure profit. By contrast, it took the final Sunny novel several weeks after its release to earn out. I have an idea why, which I'll cover in a moment.

For now, let's look at some other financial data.

Nessa #4 and Sunny #6 were released three months apart. Since the latter's release, the former has outsold the latter by more than 2.5 times. So for every dollar that Vampire Alley brings in, A Witch Called Justice earns $2.50. They're both priced at $3.99, so retail price is not a factor here.

Another relevant data point is series earnings. Sunny's series was introduced five and a half years before Nessa's series. Granted, I made a lot of mistakes with Sunny's series: the first covers were entirely wrong for the stories and I initially placed it in the wrong genres. Once those were corrected, the series sold better. Two books were chosen for BookBub newsletter ads, the gold standard for book advertising; those spots are incredibly difficult to snag.

Despite that, Nessa's series has just surpassed Sunny's series in sales on Amazon. Sunny has out earned Nessa on Barnes & Noble, Apple, and various small online retailers roughly three times over, but when sales from all retailers are compiled, Sunny has only out earned Nessa by roughly $500.

Finally, each of Nessa's main-series novels has earned more on Amazon, on average, than Sunny's main-series novels despite not having been on the market as long.

Branding and Marketing

I mentioned earlier that I have an idea why Vampire Alley took longer to earn out than A Witch Called Justice.

The reason is relatively straightforward: I made a deliberate effort to write and brand the Vanessa Kinley Series to market. "Write to market" is an indie-author term indicating that a story has been written with key market factors in mind, such as tropes and character archetypes that readers love and/or writing in a growing subgenre.

When I set out to write Greenwood Cove, Sunny's first novel, I deliberately aimed to counter conventional Southern stereotypes. I tried to stay true not only to Sunny's voice, but also to the very real lives of backwoods Southerners. That's why her family spends so much story time cooking and eating: meals are the glue for many Southern families and communities. It's why I tried to render her accent faithfully. And so on.

My goals for Nessa's series were very different. With it, I deliberately took the things readers love about Sunny (kickass female character, a romantic subplot, family secrets, etc.), but aimed instead at the wider Urban Fantasy market. From the covers to the titles to the tropes, Nessa was meant to please both my existing fan base and to bring in a larger audience while also delivering the same fast-paced, action packed, tightly written ride.

Judging by reviews and sales alone, it's succeeded in doing just that. The Vanessa Kinley Series is currently my top-selling series. It's the easiest to advertise and it consistently draws in new readers in a way Sunny's series does not.

The Smart Thing To Do

Don't get me wrong: I love Sunny, to the point that I had originally planned on extending her series to nine books, several additional shorter stories, and two spinoff series. Creatively speaking, that makes sense. The ideas are there, so why not write them?

But there's a balance to maintaining a writing career. It's not all about creativity and ideas. Financially speaking, continuing to pour energy into Sunny's series makes zero sense. It's difficult to market and doesn't sell as well as some of my other books.

No, the smart thing to do is to extend Nessa's series. Even writing under my other pen names doesn't make as much sense, business wise, as writing more Nessa books.

The problem is...burnout. At one point, just the thought of writing more stories for this pen name made me sick to my stomach.

That's a little better now (I only feel a mild dread now when I think of writing Urban Fantasy), but I've spent the past six months or so writing in a completely different genre with zero pressure to write anything else.

That doesn't mean I'm not tempted.

Additional Hurdles

But there are problems with writing more Celia Roman books.

The first is that my cover designer stopped designing. Even if I wanted to write other Sunny and Nessa books, it would be difficult to match the current covers. And for branding purposes, I definitely would want that.

Secondly, I've painted myself into a corner by writing in a super specialized niche, Urban Fantasy Mystery with a series-long romantic subplot. Super, super niche.

I hate feeling confined. It's why I decided to scrap this pen name rather than trying to break out of that tiny niche, even though business wise it makes sense to try. I reached a point where I'd rather start from scratch with another pen name than try to steer this pen name back into a wider market.

Do I have ideas for other story worlds that would roughly fit this pen name? Oh, boy, do I. I've discussed those elsewhere.

Will I ever write them?

At this point, that's the wrong question to ask. The right one is: will I ever be able to write Fantasy again?

Protecting My King

As I said, right now I'm focused on doing whatever I can just to keep writing. As Becca Syme put it, protecting our writing process and productivity is the king on an author's chessboard. If the king falls, so do our careers. I made a conscious choice to guard my king (productivity) by sacrificing my queen (earnings), hopefully temporarily.

I don't know if that was the correct choice. I just know that I never want to be in a place, ever again, where I can't write or where writing leads to continual burnout. That's what happened during most of the 2017-2024 years while I focused almost solely on writing Sunny and Nessa's series. I never want to live through that again.

So, if protecting my king means writing in other genres, ok. If it means leaving a successful pen name behind, ok.

On the other hand, I'm actively trying to get back to a place where Fantasy is once again part of my repertoire. Again, I hate feeling confined, and that includes being shut out of a genre I love because of burnout.

I don't know what the future holds, and I hate saying never, even where Sunny is concerned. Instead, let me close by saying that I have ideas. Maybe one day my creativity will be strong enough for me to write them.

The post Why Vampire Alley will (probably) be Sunny’s final novel appeared first on Celia Roman.

Romance Book Blast

I'm participating in a fill your ereader event called Romance Book Blast. Today and today only, choose from a massive amount of free Romance and romantic fiction novels.

Four of my novels, across multiple pen names, will be available for free today as part of this event:

-- Between a Witch and a Hard Place (Vanessa Kinley, Witch PI, Book 1) by Celia Roman
-- The Prophecy (Daughters of the People, Book 1) by Lucy Varna
-- The Choosing (The Pruxnae, Book 1) by Lucy Varna
-- The Vampire's Pet (The Vampyr, Book 1) by V.R. Cumming

Again, this is a one-day only event and a great time to load your ereader with books for Spring Break, so don't hesitate to go find your perfect story.

Happy reading!

The post Romance Book Blast appeared first on Celia Roman.

Big sale on the Sunshine Walkingstick three-book omnibus!

For the next few days, the Sunshine Walkingstick omnibus containing the first three books in the series is on sale for just $.99, a savings of $9.00!

That price is good for a very limited time. If you haven't read Sunny's stories yet, now's a great time to start, especially since the series is complete.

And, all the novels in the series are available in Kindle Unlimited!

Happy reading!

The post Big sale on the Sunshine Walkingstick three-book omnibus! appeared first on Celia Roman.

What I’m Working on Now

Remember last year when I told you that I was headed in a new direction? How one of the things I wanted to focus on was writing the books I want to have written before I died?

Well. About that...

I spent the remainder of last year, from August through December, trying to focus on those non-romantic Science Fiction and Fantasy stories, the ideas I'd been hoarding for years, waiting for the right time to jump into them. During that time, I finished exactly two stories, both of them under 10,000 words in length (short stories). In that amount of time, I should've written at least one novel and gotten a good start on another one, but no. Two short stories. That's all I finished.

It was one of the most frustrating times in my life. There I was, surrounded by all these lovely ideas that I'd been aching to write, and I...couldn't write.

Finally, around the first of the year, I knew something had to give. Writers write. Period, the end. If I couldn't write, then I had no hope of sustaining my business, or myself. I had to make a serious change.

Or else.

The Genre of My Heart

Enter my backup plan, which I also mentioned in the above-referenced post: after taking a hard look at my situation and evaluating all the different paths I could take, I jumped back into writing SciFi Romance under my first pen name, Lucy Varna.

And I have to tell you that I'm having a blast.

For the first time in years, the words are flowing so quickly, I can barely get them down before more come piling in. Already this month, I've racked up the highest January word count total since 2015.

That is not a typo. It's been a decade since I've written this much in a January.

I spent years spiraling into burnout and years more trying to dig my way out. One of the key factors of both was simply writing the stories of my heart, the ones I'd let others, and myself, talk me out of writing. The ones I didn't want to write because Romance readers don't particularly find my Romances compelling or emotionally engaging, which is why I wanted to focus on non-romantic SFF in the first place.

It turns out that Romance is an integral part of the stories I want to write. Nearly every story I've been collecting for the non-romantic SFF pen name has a romantic subplot, including the ones I've discussed here. And that was one of the reasons I was stalling on writing those books: I felt like I had to smother the romance out of the stories in order to be a "proper" SFF writer.

I finally figured out that that notion is just so much horse manure.

So, I'm working on finding a way to integrate the romance back into some of those stories. That wasn't the only holdup; I had several issues to solve. One big one is the publishing path I'd like to take for the SFF that was supposed to be non-romantic, which could take years to fulfill.

In the meantime, I have to have money coming in. So. SciFi Romance it is. And trust me, I have tons of ideas for those, enough to last until I can (hopefully) get that first less-romantic (ha!) SFF series off the ground.

With the SFR, I'm taking a page out of Anne McCaffrey's books and incorporating more worldbuilding and different kinds of stories than are common among the current crop of SFRs. Even though my newer SFRs contain panty-melting smexy times, the non-romantic elements fall squarely on the Science Fiction side of the aisle, with enough real science and technology to make them plausible. There's some handwavium involved (seriously, I'm not going to go into exacting detail; this isn't Hard SciFi), but I don't rely on it as heavily many SFR authors do.

Giving Myself Permission

You may ask why I'm not writing more Urban Fantasy.

That's a perfectly valid question with a perfectly simple answer: every time I think about writing a Fantasy story, my stomach twists into knots. Double that feeling for every time an idea for this pen name pops into my head.

Apparently, writing Urban and Contemporary Fantasy was an intrinsic factor in my burning out, one I had buried so deeply, it took years to uncover. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to write any kind of Fantasy again. It's such a shame, too, as I have several fantastic ideas for Fantasy series, some of which I've already discussed. I hate to disappoint readers (boy, do I ever!), but the simple fact is that I have to focus on doing the things that keep me writing.

So as much as it pains me, I have given myself permission to disappoint readers by not writing Fantasy.

In fact, I have given myself permission to let go of every Fantasy idea, for now. If they're the right thing for me to write someday, I'll know. And believe me. You'll be the first to hear about it.

I have given myself permission to write the stories that pop into my head every morning, whether or not they fit someone else's idea of what I should be writing. Or whether they fit my idea of what I should be writing!

I have given myself permission to have fun and to focus on doing the things that I enjoy, especially those things that recharge my creativity, like reading, taking long drives, knitting, and spending time with my family.

And yes, writing Anne McCaffrey-esque Science Fiction with stronger romantic elements.

In other words, I am getting out of my own way. Consequently, these past three weeks have been the most enjoyable, and least stressful, I've had in years.

Moving Forward

I do have some preorders up, one just to motivate me to finish a story I started years ago, the sequel to my first SciFi Romance. Once it's published, I'm focusing solely on writing the stories that fill my heart. That's how I started writing fiction in the first place and it's where I want to get back to.

Don't get me wrong. I've loved every minute I've spent with Sunny, Nessa, and all the other characters written under this pen name.

But this is not where I belong. I've known it for years. I just didn't want to admit it. Maybe I should've paid more attention to all those times I stood under a nighttime sky and dreamed of living among the stars.

I do not regret any time I've spent writing under the Celia Roman name. I've learned so much, met so many wonderful readers, and I'm so proud of all the stories I wrote for you. Thank you for allowing me to share these story worlds with you, and thank you for your patience while I muddled my way back to writing prolifically once again.

Peace and happy reading!

The post What I’m Working on Now appeared first on Celia Roman.

Sunshine Walkingstick Series is now in Kindle Unlimited!

The Sunshine Walkingstick Series is now available in Kindle Unlimited.

When I originally pulled Sunny's stories out of Amazon's exclusive reader subscription program a few years ago, I swore I wouldn't put them back in. At the time, they sold better when they were more widely available, so it made sense to keep them that way.

However, now that I'm working on other pen names, it's time to try something different.

If you've been waiting for a sale to pick up the series or wanted to try a good chunk before buying, now's a great time to do so.

Happy reading!

 

The post Sunshine Walkingstick Series is now in Kindle Unlimited! appeared first on Celia Roman.

Time Off, Starting a New Series, and General Updates

After the release of Vampire Alley, the sixth Sunshine Walkingstick novel, at the end of June, I took a month off.

That time off was completely unplanned. I had intended to jump right into outlining the first book of the newest series, but for whatever reason, one day passed and then another, and before I knew it, July had ended and I still hadn't started that outline.

I'm still puzzling over the whys. Mostly, I was just tired. Finishing both Vanessa and Sunny's separate series back to back took a lot out of me. Both had emotional endings, especially Sunny's. I hadn't anticipated how much writing either book would drain me.

And I hadn't anticipated how hard I would have to push to finish them.

So yes, I was tired on a lot of different levels, especially emotionally and creatively, and needed some time to recharge.

I also needed time to evaluate my career and decide which direction I'll be going in. I was sorely tempted to jump back into SciFi Romance written under my first pen name, Lucy Varna. After all, I love reading and writing that genre, and I have a ton of ideas for futuristic romances.

But was that really where I wanted to spend my time?

I'll admit to dithering quite a bit there, dithering for a whole month even.

In the end, the answer to that question turned out to be another question: At the end of my life, what books will I want to have written?

And another one still: Where will I be most satisfied having spent my time?

The answers to those were shockingly clear (not the kinds of books I've been writing), and thus do simple insights determine the path forward.

The honest truth is that while I enjoy Sunny and Nessa and all the stories and characters I've worked with in the past decade, too many of them were written with an eye to the market rather than an eye to what really appeals to me as a writer. Some were written just to please a small, core group of readers, but this amounts to the same thing. The motivations and reasons for writing many of the stories I published after 2015 - 2016 were coming from outside myself.

I've been wanting to write longer, more complex stories for years now, things that don't just satisfy my inner muse, but that also satisfy the way I want to create new stories. That means no more fluff (although hardly any of my readers would call what I've already published "fluff"). It means no more setting deadlines or sticking to one particular genre, or rushing to finish a story because readers are getting impatient.

(Not that my readers are pushy, but I do feel that artificial pressure to produce, as opposed to the natural, internal pressure to follow where the story leads.)

It means no more listening to gurus about what I "should" be writing, no more writing in markets that are "hot," no more following the crowd. It means doing what makes me happy in the way that's most satisfying and that plays to my natural strengths.

I'd like to take what Cal Newport calls a "slow productivity" path. Not writing slowly, but focusing more intensely on the things that are important to me as a writer, namely high quality stories and more meaningful connections with readers.

In other words, I'd like to step out of the rat race that indie publishing has become. Less busy work, more well-developed story worlds. Less social media time, more thoughtful interactions with readers.

To that end, I should warn readers that I don't plan on writing any further stories under this pen name. (Emphasis on "plan" because even now, as resolved as I am to chart a different course, I can't say "never.")

Instead, my time will be spent building a new pen name, Martina Anders, under which I will write Science Fiction and Fantasy, and possibly some darker stories and satire as well. These new stories will have a lower emphasis on romantic subplots, though I can't completely rule those out. They will be longer, more complex, and more deeply written, and they're not as unfamiliar as you may think.

In fact, you've already gotten small tastes of them in previous posts (here, for example), in my newsletter, and on social media. The first one I'm working on is a new Urban Fantasy series tentatively called the Order of the Thrice-Blooded Moon. The working title of the first book is Sentinels of the Divine, and the main characters are a warrior witch named Harlow, an ancient vampire named Samael, and a werewolf called Kyrnon.

Before I get sidetracked, I should explain why I'm not writing Sentinels under this pen name. The reason isn't exactly simple, but it can be summed up in one word: brand.

I've locked myself into a very tiny brand with books published under the Celia Roman pen name: first person narratives and short paranormal/fantasy mysteries with a strong romantic subplot. Most of the new stories will feature multiple narrators, a wider variety of genres, and longer, more complex, more deeply written (I hope) stories with smaller, if any, romantic subplots.

So it's a branding issue divided into genre, length, and type of story. I feel as if I've pigeonholed myself and have gotten a bit claustrophobic and constrained, creatively and otherwise. I'd like to break out of that self-created mold and work on very different projects, but all under one pen name rather than having to bounce around trying to maintain several pen names, as I've done in the past (and, thus, fractured my dwindling attention span). Again, this goes back to the slow productivity mindset; I want to focus my efforts, and the best way to do that is to start fresh with a clean slate.

Well, almost fresh and clean. One of the reasons I'm working on the Order series first is that I hope to bring at least some of my existing audience over to the new pen name. While I will be writing SciFi under that name, too, I don't anticipate the Order being my last Urban Fantasy. For one, I'd really like to delve into another series I've discussed previously, Gods & Monsters of Appalachia.

I'm still trying to figure out a writing schedule, blogging, social media, and so on, but I have faith that it will all come together nicely once I find my writing rhythm again.

And yes, my writing rhythm is completely gone, has been since late 2015, so that's one of the problems I'm hoping to solve over the next few months.

Part of all this navel gazing is from a recent age upgrade. I just turned 55, and with that shift came the realization that I may only have another decade or two to write. That limited time period really brought home the need to focus on the kinds of stories I want to produce. It takes months and sometimes years to get a story from idea to published product, after all. Realistically speaking, I may only ever be able to publish four to six full-length novels each year, if that (assuming I can stay out of burnout and find my writing happy place again), and I have way more than a full decade's worth of ideas waiting to be written.

So yes, it does come down to what I want to have written when I reach the end of my life.

I'm still offering Sunny, Nessa, etc. for sale and have no plans to ever pull those books off the market. I'll maintain the Celia Roman newsletter and social media stuff for a while longer, but once the first few books are released under the new pen name, I'll be devoting the majority of my time to it.

Thank you for being such devoted fans of Sunny, Nessa, Kaya, and all the other wonderful characters I've shared with you over the years. I hope you'll stick around for many more stories to come!

The post Time Off, Starting a New Series, and General Updates appeared first on Celia Roman.

Building Crossville

Note: This post first appeared in my newsletter on 1 May 2024.

***

When Vanessa Kinley first popped into my head, I had no idea what her setting would be. Crossville, GA, the fictional bedroom community of Atlanta, where the series is set, developed naturally during the writing of the first book, Between a Witch and a Hard Place.

Kinley's, her brother Nick's bar, needed to be grounded within the community, for example, and right from the first scene, way before the story was even outlined, I knew there was something special about the building.

These are the kinds of things that I generally wait for characters to tell me. Nessa explained how she and Nick came to live and work in that building, but she didn't know the whole of it. It wasn't until Seth was more fully fleshed out that I discovered why he'd given that space over to them.

But even still, the building had to have a background. To create it, I drew on my own background as a historical researcher and my travels around the South.

Back in the late 19th and early 20th century, cotton mills (later called textile mills) dotted the South and were often manned by women and children. Whole families would pick up and move from town to town, seeking the best pay and working conditions, not just a nuclear family of a father, a mother, and their children, but siblings and their spouses and children.

Westerners don't migrate like that anymore. The ease of modern travel has made it possible for single men and women to move clear across the country from their family, or even to a completely different one, without losing their support network.

But until roughly the post-World War II era (more or less), that's not the way things were done. Families often moved together, and it wasn't unusual still for whole communities to pick up and move, even at that late date, as they had in much earlier times. Often, a nuclear family would migrate to a place where another part of the family lived, or young, single men would explore a new area then go back home and bring the entire family back.

One such mass migration involved families moving from the Southern Appalachians to the Pacific Northwest (Oregon and Washington) to work in the timber industry. This affected not-too-distant members of my grandmother Ledford's family, the Andersons, Dills, and others who moved from Cartoogechaye Township in Macon County, North Carolina, to Skagit County, Washington, and elsewhere beginning in roughly the 1910s. The Franklin Press, Macon County's paper of record, would publish news sent back in letters and, later, phone calls so locals could keep track of friends and family members.

Anyway, many of the cotton mills were constructed of brick, and boy, were they massive. Eventually, though, as America moved more and more of its workforce away from textiles into technological jobs and knowledge work, the mills shut down and/or moved overseas and the buildings were abandoned.

There's been a concerted effort over the past couple of decades to renovate these old mills and turn them into useful spaces. In nearby Greenville, SC, several have been converted into higher end apartments. One of our more local mills was turned into an indoor market space.

But there's more to a mill town than the mill itself. Workers had to have housing, and to encourage workers to stay, owners often constructed simple houses for them. Cincinnati, OH, still has examples of one style of mill houses that are now seeing a rising popularity among property developers.

I set Crossville's mill houses a little farther away from the renovated mill than I probably should have, but the story needed the space for various reasons.

The Depot, too, was set farther away for the same reason, even though in reality, mill owners tried to minimize the distance between the mill building and the local train stop, to reduce the time it took to move products in and out of the town.

There's a reason for that distance, which was laid out in Between a Witch and a Hard Place:

"Most towns of any size have a seedy area. The strip mall where Angel ran her fortune telling business was one of Crossville’s, but not the only one, and certainly not the most dangerous. That would be the Depot, the area around the burned-out husk of the old train depot containing the remnants of grain silos and warehouses destroyed by a raging fire during the early 1930s. The factory’s owners had built a new depot closer to the factory, leaving the old depot area to rot. Tenements had been built there during the second Great War, and the area had seen a small resurgence for a time, until the gradual shift of clothing manufacturing overseas during the last half of the twentieth century.

"Now, the Depot sheltered druggies, the homeless, and those too beat down to make it outside of what was essentially a slum. It’s where the serious conmen originated, ones that made Angel’s parlor tricks look like rainbows and sunshine."

You can see there how heavily I relied on my own background to construct that history.

So, those are the two secrets behind Crossville's buildings and layout: I waited for the characters to give me clues, then I leaned on historical research, some of it already floating around in my head, to fill in the details.

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