Romancing the Story Contest: Feature Profiles on our five Judges

Wondering who will be reading and reviewing your Romance Short Stories? These five experienced judges can’t wait to dig into your work! Remember to submit your story by the extended deadline of July 14, 2014, for these authors and literary critics to read your work.

Denise Sutton

Denise H. Sutton, PhD, is the author of Globalizing Ideal Beauty: Women, Advertising and the Power of Marketing (Palgrave Macmillan 2012), which tells the story of the powerful group of female copywriters who contributed to the rise of the international advertising giant J. Walter Thompson. Sutton developed and taught courses on gender and media at the New School University, New York City, and currently lectures at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She has been an invited speaker at colleges and at corporations such as Unilever. Sutton brings her expertise on gender and the marketing of ideas to her current research on romance publishing in a dramatic story of broken and healed hearts and the genuine passion involved in creating a genre of books that is often derided even as it outsells all others.

Kate Robbins

Kate Robbins writes historical Scottish romance out of pure escapism and a love for Scottish culture and history. Her debut novel and winner of the 2013 TARA Award for Historical Romance, Bound to the Highlander, is the first of five novels in her Highland Chiefs series set in 15th century Scotland under the rule of James Stewart, first of his name. Her second novel, Promised to the Highlander, was released on May 30th.

Kate is the pen name of Debbie Robbins, who lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador with her man-beast and two man-cubs.

Debbie Ouellet

Author and poet, Debbie Ouellet lives in Loretto, Ontario. Her children’s book, “How Robin Saved Spring” (Henry Holt, 2009) was redistributed in Chinese in 2013. Her teen novels for reluctant readers are: “A Hero’s Worth”, “Legend of the Ring” and “Wave” (HIP Books, Toronto). Debbie has had numerous short stories, articles and poetry published in anthologies, mainstream magazines, educational publications and literary journals across North America. In 2012, Debbie was awarded the City of Vaughan Rave Award, Mentor in the Literary Arts for her ongoing work with the Vaughan Poets’ Circle.

Kat Duncan

As a young child Kat Duncan once tried to confess the telling of her stories to her parish priest because she thought they fit the definition the nuns gave for telling a lie. With her lies fully sanctioned and blessed by church authorities, she writes stories from realistic historicals to quirky suspense. Kat’s Writer’s Guides are a popular series for budding authors. Kat is a Fulbright Scholar and holds a Master’s Degree in Education. She loves to share learning with all kinds of students. Her love of cooking and gardening is turning her New England property into an edible landscape.

Kelly Boyce

Kelly Boyce’s writing career took off in 2011 with the release of her first book, a western historical romance, The Outlaw Bride. Since then, she has written for Carina Press, Harlequin Historical and has indie published the first two books in her regency historical series, An Invitation To Scandal and A Scandalous Passion. When she isn’t busy writing, she likes to spend time with her husband and clownish golden retriever, sweat it out in hot yoga, read and run. Newest releases include Salvation In The Rancher’s Arms (Harlequin Historical, August 2014) and her third regency, A Sinful Temptation (Amazon, Fall 2014).

Check out full contest information here.

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