May 2025

Started to write this newsletter last week but became mired in negativity (not difficult to do these days). So, instead of writing about contemporary stuff like floods, fires, politics, etc., I figured I’d chat about how I came to be published.

First of all, the only thing I ever wanted to do in my life was write novels. When I was a little girl and someone would ask me what I wanted to “be” when I grew up, I’d say, “an author." I think, although I’m not sure, that we’re each born with certain talents. I wish I’d been born with a gift for making money, which would be much more useful than being born possessed of a way with words.

It took me a long time to begin writing books. For one thing, I was a single mother of two. I supported the kids via my work as a secretary, which I hated very, very,much, thank you. Writing takes lots of time, and I didn’t have any.

However, after my children grew up, I had a little extra time with which to do fun stuff. I took night classes in history, anthropology, mythology, and creative writing, but I still couldn’t imagine tackling anything as complicated as a book. Not only that, but I couldn’t for the life of me decide what to write. Sustaining 400 manuscript pages about nothing, while it has been done, didn’t appeal to me. For several years, therefore, I expressed my creative side by singing and dancing with Eastern European folk-dancing and -singing groups.

The groups to which I added my modest talents were Avaz, Gypsy, and Zhena (the chorus). I’d always secretly harbored a wish to sing grand opera, but female tenors aren’t in great demand in opera. Fortunately for me, they were in demand in Bulgarian choruses; ergo, my stint with Zhena. Singing and dancing were fun, but neither produced any books (or money). And then my feet went south (traumatic arthritis, which has now spread into a sort of universal bodily arthritis), and I had no outlet for my creative side. I took up compulsive baking for a while and then compulsive eating, but that only made me fat.

In October of 1993, as my daughter Robin and I were on vacation visiting Billy the Kid’s grave, I wrote a description of the landscape. I jotted it in a little notebook snatched from my purse and hastily stuffed back. I didn’t tell Robin or anyone else what I’d done, because I didn’t know what to do with it. I did, however, begin writing little blurbs in my notebook from time to time.

Around that time, a friend persuaded me to read a modern-day romance novel. I’d always eschewed (gesundheit) romance novels because of the sleazy covers. But I read a couple and discovered that’s what I wanted to write! In spite of my overall difficult life and my predilection for choosing the worst men in the world as partners, I wanted to believe in everlasting love and romance. Go figure. At any rate, I started writing books.

I was 49 years old and had all but given up on my life’s dream. When I finally started writing, therefore, I went a little wild and wrote constantly when I wasn’t at my cursed day job, and sometimes even then. Don’t tell anybody.

Then I began sending off proposals like a fanatical fiend. I started with agents, some of whom were kind, but none of whom were willing to take a chance on me. I continued to write. I finally penned (or computered) a book I really thought might have a chance. I called it Bright Angel. In a frenzy of activity right before Christmas in 1993, I sent off seven Bright Angel proposals to seven different publishers, foregoing the agent thing since agent-seeking wasn’t panning out.

On Monday, January 17, 1994, the date of the massive Northridge earthquake, I got a call at work from a woman who claimed she was an editor and was telephoning from Harper Collins. I nearly fainted. Good thing I didn’t since she went on to ask if my book, Bright Angel, was complete. I said it was. She asked me to send the whole manuscript. I was in a state the likes of which I can’t even describe when that phone call ended.

Almost at once after that, my boss called from Boston and asked about the quake. I said we were having awful aftershocks (true), dust and plaster kept falling from the ceiling (true), and it was scary to be in the building (not quite so true, but I was working on another agenda at the time). So he told me to go home. I did. While there—after discovering that my dog Weenie had eaten an entire box of oatmeal that had fallen from a shelf after the quake. Fortunately, she didn’t burst—I printed out my precious manuscript and sent it off via FedEx to Harper Collins. On the Friday of that very same week, January 21, the editor called to tell me Harper wanted to publish my book. I was at work and couldn’t scream, but I called everyone I knew and told them I’d succeeded at last in selling a book. The feeling was indescribable, so I won’t attempt to describe it. Anyhow, it didn’t last.

Bright Angel eventually turned into One Bright Morning. After it was published, I managed to secure an agent. The next few years included many more ups and downs in what I laughingly call my writing career. I wrote historical romances, and even tried to write a western or two.

And then, in about 1999 or 2000, Daisy Gumm Majesty popped up in my messy brain. Daisy lived in Pasadena, California. The first book was set in 1920. What’s more, Daisy earned her living as a phony spiritualist-medium, because she could make more money doing that than she could doing any of the other work designated for women at the time. As her husband, Billy, was a casualty of the Great War and her father had a wonky heart, she and her mother and aunt had to support the family.

As much as I loved Daisy, she had a difficult time finding a good home. Some publishers wanted me to write more romances; some were happy with cozy mysteries. Daisy finally found a home with Five Star/Cengage. Nothing stays static, however, and one dark day, Cengage dumped their fiction line (Five Star). Eventually Daisy, Mercy, and I found our way to ePublishingWorks where we remain, at least for the time being.

And there you have the essence of my writing career. By George, I’ve published more than seventy novels and three novellas under five different names. Too bad most people have never heard of any of them.

Honest to dog, I think writing is a genetic flaw. Perhaps doctors will find a cure for it someday.

Ahem. Back to your regularly scheduled newsletter stuff.

Please buy my books. Spirits Adopted is getting nice reviews, although not many of them. Because the 1920s were a hundred years ago, everybody is writing “roaring twenties” books these days. I keep tabs on books set in the 1920s and honestly, not many of them are accurate to the time period. I attempt to keep my own books true to the period, but even I (even I. Like that?) slip up sometimes. More than a hundred years have passed, after all, and I know things people in Daisy and Mercy’s days couldn’t possibly have known.

 Here's one tiny “for instance” to illustrate the point about we moderns knowing more than our 100-years-ago predecessors. Doctors were promoting cigarette-smoking back then! Claimed smoking was good for a body. Well, we all know now that smoking is extremely dangerous. None of the people in my books smoke, which isn’t true to the time period. Oh well…

 I also grew up in Altadena, California, which (as we all know) isn’t there any longer. Unlike most places, everyone lived in the Pasadena/Altadena area. Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Confucians, atheists…you name it, they were there. I’ve spoken to many fellow 1963 John Muir High School graduates, and we honestly thought the whole world was like that. Silly us, huh?

Whoops. Went off on a tangent there. Please buy Spirits Adopted. Here’s a link. Just click on the cover:

Spirits Adopted

You may also, if you’re feeling kind and generous, pre-order Rosy Spirits. Click on the cover to go to the Amazon Kindle sits:

Pre-order: Rosy Spirits

I may eventually finish writing Dancing Angels, although my wits have been scattered of late. Nothing like getting flooded out of your home and then watching your childhood burn to ashes—not to mention attempting to get the formerly flooded home habitable again—to distract one’s mind from writing. Writing Mercy books isn’t fun for me any longer, so she may be facing her demise. I sincerely apologize if this makes anyone unhappy. Still love writing Daisy, and am champing at the bit to write Rosy Spirits. Won’t allow myself to write Rosy until I’ve finished Dancing, however, so quite often I sit in my office staring at the computer and wishing some kind person would just humanely euthanize me so I won’t have to think anymore. But never mind.

In case you'd like to pre-order Dancing Angels, click on the interim cover to be taken to the Amazon Kindle link:

Pre-order: Dancing Angels

If you’re on Facebook, please join Daisy Daze! Anyone who has an interest in the 1920s will probably find Daisy Daze interesting. Daisy Dazers give me plotting advice all the time. They’ve been going at it like gangbusters lately and I’m extremely grateful for their ideas. Daisy Daze was founded by Iris Evans and Leon Fundenberger, both of whom like Daisy and Mercy. Daisy Daze is a great place for Daisy Gumm Majesty Rotondo and Mercedes Louise Allcutt (soon to be Templeton) fans to hang out, as well as anyone who is interested in the “Roaring Twenties.” We concentrate pretty closely on the Pasadena and Los Angeles areas, because the books are set there. We also cover a lot of stuff relating to early motion pictures, because both Daisy and Mercy have friends in the biz. Daisy Daze is entertaining, it’s educational and if you’d like to be a member, check it out here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/905100189878318/

If you’d like to visit my web page, here’s the link. As ever, I’m grateful to Lyndele von Schill, who seems to be capable of doing anything and everything. Amazing woman, Lyndele. So glad she befriended me on Facebook! Home | Alice Duncan . If you’d like to be Facebook friends, please go here: (20+) Alice Duncan | Facebook .

Here’s a link to my author page at ePublishingWorks: Alice Duncan - ePublishingWorks

Thank you!

P.S. The library pictured above was the Lamanda Park Branch Library in Pasadena, California. I have plans for that library, in which I used to work, if I live long enough.