Liz here, happy to welcome guests Traci Hall and Patrice Wilton— the writing dream team who writes the Salem B&B Mysteries under the name Traci Wilton. They are here today to talk about their collaboration, their books, and most importantly, their friendship. Take it away, ladies!
We are so glad to hang out with you all today!
I met Patrice eighteen years ago through the RWA community. We were both unpublished with BIG dreams, and we were willing to do whatever it took to reach our goals. Patrice was focused on romance while my Gemini self enjoyed telling stories about everything. Why not? (There is a valid reason for that focus, but that is not the point of this post!)
Fast forward to a Florida Romance Writers cruise four years ago. We’d decided to see if we could write together, since we’d been critique partners forever. We had similar styles, we were both determined and disciplined. We had our eye on the prize—a contract with a publishing house in New York. We’d met with our soon-to-be agent on that cruise to pitch a romance that we’d completed in months without many hiccups. That was the beginning of our co-writing journey.
Our golden rule was to never forget that our friendship came first. That makes it easy to compromise or find another solution. We are each strong writers and we learned how to blend our voices into a unique one for the Salem B and B series. Book 5 was just released last week, Mrs. Morris and the Vampire. Book 6 will be out next year. I’m a plotter, which helps with structure, and Patrice has a sense of whimsy and writes from the heart. It works for us. We like it so much that we also write an indie series, the Riley Harper mysteries, that takes place on a fictional island in Maine.
Thank you so much for having us on the blog today! And readers, we’d love to know if there is someone in your life who makes you more than who you are—tell us all about them please! It can be your grandma or your pet fish, we want to know! Our favorite will get a signed copy of Mrs. Morris and the Vampire. One for you, and one for your bestie 😊 ! We will choose a winner September 7th from the comments.