It has been a while since I’ve posted about my life as an author, and I’d like to share news about some exciting writing opportunities I’ve been offered in the last few months.

Autumn is a busy time at our lodge, and I have little extra time to do anything. When I take a break, I usually fall asleep, so I haven’t written as much as I’d planned this fall. I have received some interesting invitations, though, and they have reignited my passion for succeeding as an author.

I was surprised and honored when Krishna Prasad, the editor for The Wagon Magazine, invited me to publish my mystery newsletters as a monthly column in his magazine. He even provided this logo for me to use. A few weeks later, the editor of True Crime: Case Files ezine asked me to submit an article. I sent her one of my mystery stories, and she accepted it for publication in the winter issue.

As the number of subscribers for my newsletter grows, I feel I’m beginning to reap the rewards of the many hours of hard work I’ve put into writing the newsletters, and I can’t wait to see what awaits down the road for my true crime stories. I hope before long to compile the stories into a book (or two).

Several of the authors I’ve invited to write guest posts on my site over the last few weeks are members of a group I belong to called Author Masterminds. We all have the same publisher (Publication Consultants), and the group consists of approximately thirty authors. We meet once a week via Zoom, an Internet meeting interface. Our group includes authors from Alaska, Texas, Florida, Michigan, Idaho, and other U.S. States, as well as from South Africa and Gibraltar. We write in many different genres, and I don’t think any two of us write in the same genre. We range in age from 16 to 75 and have very little in common other than a passion for writing and a dream to have others read what we write.

When I first joined this group, I felt honored to be invited. Our first meetings were quiet as we got to know each other, but as the group has expanded, we’ve all become more verbose. I have grown attached to the people in this group and feel especially close to the few I’ve been with since the beginning. We have supported each other through medical issues and family worries, and we’ve laughed a great deal as we’ve shared our clumsy attempts at marketing. A few members of the group make me laugh whenever I hear their voices.

It’s always nice to form a bond and belong to a group with others who share your passion, but for me, it’s a special treat. I live in the middle of the wilderness, and I have no one to talk to about writing and promoting my writing. It is invaluable to spend an hour a week with other authors who understand my dreams, confusion, and insecurities when it comes to the modern world of writing and publicity. I look forward each week to our meetings, but with our limited Internet out here in the wilds of Kodiak Island, I can only attend the meetings by audio, not video, so I refer to myself as the voice in the darkness. Some of our African colleagues face the same bandwidth restrictions I do, so we hang out with each other in the shadows.

Our publisher has recently hired a marketing specialist for us, and we are developing a book club Our club will differ from most book clubs because we, the authors, want to interact with our readers, get to know them and find out what they think about our books. I’m excited to invite readers to join our club, and I hope we can pull together an involved group. I’ll let you know how it goes, and I will provide a link to our club once we are organized. I hope all of you will join us.

Next week, Rich Ritter, a member of our Author Masterminds group who writes edgy historical fiction, will be my guest blogger. Rich is a talented author, and I know you will find him as fascinating as I do.

For now, my wilderness friends and I want to wish you a great week.

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Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. If you like audiobooks, check out her audiobook version of Murder Over Kodiak. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.