Welcome to New Faces, where we turn the spotlight on debut romance authors and let them introduce themselves! This week we are pleased to welcome the writing team of Marian Gibbons and Karin Welss, who write together as Michaela August. Their unusual historical novel, Sweeter Than Wine, is now out from Neighborhood Press.

Tell us about Michaela August -- and yourselves.

Michaela August is a writing team composed of two Northern California authors, Marian Gibbons and Karin Welss. Our first novel, Sweeter Than Wine, is a historical romance set in California's wine country on the eve of Prohibition. It was published in May 1999 by Neighborhood Press.

Despite living 90 miles apart, we've been collaborating for over five years, using the phone and the Internet. In fact, we were critique partners-- and best friends-- for about three months before we met in person! A little bit about us, individually:

Marian: I'm a native of California. My parents, and their parents, were San Franciscans but I was raised in Sacramento. After I married (23 years now and counting), I spent some years in exile in Portland, Oregon, and LA. Currently I live in Santa Rosa, heart of the wine country. I'm a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, I've been active in a local science fiction writing group for 14 years, and last year I joined the Romance Writers of America. The San Francisco Bay Area RWA Chapter (brave souls) elected me Treasurer this year. After so long being a wannabe (I own almost every book in the Writers Digest catalog), I'm very happy to be able to answer the question: "Oh, you're a writer?" not with "Um, yes, well, besides fan-fic, I've had a couple of short stories published, and even got paid once..." with a definitive "Yes! My first book came out in May!"

Karin: I was born in Montreal, Canada, but grew up in Northern California with many summers spent with my grandparents in Germany. I love traveling, and have been to most of western and central Europe, Southeast Asia, and Australia. I actually lived in Sydney for about two-and-a-half years, first as a university exchange student and then while working for a well-known database software company. I loved Australia and would like to live in Sydney again someday. I'm currently living in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I've been adopted by two small but very bossy parrots. Besides traveling, my other big interests are reading, history, and archaeology. My sister accuses me of writing historical fiction as an excuse to buy books and do research!

Are you coming to romance writing from other jobs?

Marian: Oh yes! I'm an administrative assistant, basically a glorified secretary, but it's a step up from being an office peon. Although I do still have to make coffee... I work in a high-tech manufacturing company fairly close to home so I have a negligible commute-- only 30 to 45 minutes.

Karin: I'm actually lucky enough to earn my living as a writer-- a technical writer at a software company. I love working in Silicon Valley-- it's well-paid, exciting, and there's something to be said for a work environment where a Ping-Pong table is considered a standard piece of office equipment, and where we have quarterly movie outings courtesy of the company. My only complaint about being a technical writer is that it's often hard to find the energy to write fiction after spending eight or ten hours writing software documentation. My output has slowed way down from the days where I had a boring day job.

What led you to write romance? Are you longtime readers?

Marian: I've been reading romance since I was introduced to Georgette Heyer's The Masqueraders while I was in high school. A classmate related the premise to me, in confusing detail, so I decided to read it for myself-- and I was hooked forever. I read everything of Heyer's I could get my hands on, then found Barbara Cartland, gothics, Anne McCaffery (Restoree_is a terrific early SF-Romance), Joan Grant's and Jacqueline Marten's reincarnation thrillers, the 'red cover books' (Silhouette Desires), Edith Layton, regencies, historical romances, paranormals, and a whole host of newer writers and genres. I read a lot, so I jump from fantasy to science fiction to romance to special-setting mystery to speculative history-- with research materials and books on writing as needed. (I've read more non-fiction in the last 5 years...)

Actually, I always wanted to be a science fiction writer, and my earliest writing goal was to have my books on the same rack for sale as Isaac Asimov's books. But for some reason--until I started writing with Karin-- I never could figure out endings for most of the science fiction ideas that I started. I probably should have turned to romance a lot earlier.

Karin: I owe my love of historical romance to Laura Kinsale's Flowers from the Storm. I'd read a historical romance or two back while I was in college, and hadn't liked them very much-- so Kinsale's work was a real revelation. I was in awe of her beautiful prose and her depth of characterization. (Marian: I lent the book to her!) We had just finished collaborating on our first (and still unpublished) novel, a historical vampire epic, and we were going through writing withdrawal symptoms. Working together had been so much fun that we decided to do it again. And since we both loved reading historical romances, and we'd just finished doing a lot of research on the post-WWI era, we thought we might put some of that research to good use and write a novel about nice people for a change!

Of course, the way things turned out, we ended up doing a whole lot more research-- winemaking and grapegrowing were definitely not things we'd researched for the vampire novel-- but it was a lot of fun. And I guess we're going to keep writing together for the foreseeable future.

Tell us about your road to publication.

Our road to publication has been long and rocky. Our first book together was that epic vampire novel... which we wrote in 11 months, mostly on sheer inspiration. We got an agent to represent it, but it languished at a fantasy publisher for nearly two years before they finally rejected it. To keep busy in the meantime we started working on our second book. We really struggled through the early drafts of Sweeter Than Wine, learning a lot in the process about rewriting and structuring a book. We had friends of ours 'beta test' it, giving us feedback from a questionnaire we designed. Then we rewrote it again. Once we thought it was in pretty good shape (a year ago, 4 years down the road in our partnership), we entered it in several RWA chapter contests that promised detailed scoresheets and critiques. We got great feedback on our synopsis and first two chapters from IRWA's Golden Opportunity contest and the Monterey Bay Chapter's Silver Heart contest, revised like mad for a couple of months, and then made the finals in the Authorlink! 1998 New Authors Competition as well as the Paul Gillette Memorial Writing Contest, which is offered by the Pikes Peak Writing Conference in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Meanwhile, we'd also been sending out queries and partials to the various NY romance publishers, and were getting nice rejections stating thanks but no thanks. They said they liked our characters and writing, but the WWI era was not a marketable time period for romance. So that was a frustrating period-- on the one hand, we were getting positive feedback from both the editors and the contest judges, and on the other hand, we were getting all these rejections.

Finally, we decided to try submitting to a small press that had been getting good word-of-mouth from the romance writers on the Internet. Rhea Griffiths at Neighborhood Press took a chance on us, and offered to buy Sweeter Than Wine last summer. We broke out the champagne!

All in all, getting published took about five years from the time we first started writing together, to the time we received the offer for Sweeter Than Wine.

What kind of research was involved?

Karin: Lots and LOTS! Well, after all, we had to do a lot of wine-tasting! But seriously, we both live in the wine country-- Marian lives in Sonoma County, about a half-hour north of where Sweeter Than Wine is set, and I live in the Livermore Valley, a wine-growing region in the East Bay. So, we actually did a lot of first-hand research at the Sonoma Valley wineries and other sites mentioned in our book.

The winery staff and the owners were incredibly enthusiastic and helpful-- even when asked how to best *ruin* an entire vintage -- and Martini & Prati in Santa Rosa gave us a private tour. We visited some historical houses, did a lot of walking around Sonoma, read a lot of references on winemaking and wine appreciation, and we also spent many hours in front of the microfiche readers at the Santa Rosa Public Library, reading through old editions of the Press-Democrat, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Sonoma Index-Tribune.

And then there was all the research on Alsace and the First World War... Marian joined the WWI listserv, and used Inter Library Loan to borrow a copy of the memoirs of Dominic Reichardt, in German, from the Tulane University Library. He was a young Alsatian farmer who fought in the war as a German soldier, and we drew on his experiences when trying to imagine what our hero Siegfried must have gone through. (Marian: Karin had to translate it for me.)

In addition to all the books, we also taped and watched PBS's documentary, THE GREAT WAR, and rented a copy of Peter Weir's Gallipoli. It was incredibly wrenching film, and the documentary-- all eight hours of it-- was just as wrenching. I think we went through an entire box of tissues that weekend.

Marian: Karin and I had previously researched the post-war era for clothing styles, (including underwear!) and Karin's friend Sally, a historical costumer, really helped us get clothing details right. I also asked my aunt and uncle some questions about what life was like in California in the early part of the Twentieth Century. And the United States Catholic Conference Permissions Manager also edited our bible quotations for correctness. We found that if we needed to know something, we could just call somebody up. Everybody was very, very helpful.

Who are your influences as writers?

Marian: I have read a lot of books in my life, and they've all influenced me in one way or another. My personal paperback library is currently pared down to about 2500 volumes, because my husband makes me go through and get rid of the ones I don't remember fondly.

Who's influenced me the most: Georgette Heyer. I have never lost my awe for Heyer and her amazing writing skills. I'd be very proud if I could write with as much verve, humor, character knowledge, and sheer storytelling ability. Someday, when I grow up...

Out of my extensive "How to Write" collection, four books stand out: How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James N. Frey, How to Write a Movie in 21 Days, The Inner Movie Method by Viki King, Character and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card, and Tricks and Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain.

Karin: Wow. That's a hard question. I used to read six or seven books a week... mostly science fiction. Andre Norton, Robert Heinlein, Robin McKinley... But I consider the following authors amazing wordsmiths, and I aspire to be as good someday: Gillian Bradshaw, Lois McMaster Bujold, Dorothy Dunnett, Diana Gabaldon, Parke Godwin, Stephen King, Carla Kelly, Laura Kinsale, Judith Merkle Reilly, LaVyrle Spencer.

What do your families think of having a romance author in their midst?

Karin: My family is SO great! My Mom tells everyone, even sales clerks and random strangers on the bus. In fact, the last time I went shopping with her, the clerk offered to set up a booksigning between the dressing room and the clearance rack! My Dad keeps printouts of my Web page to show friends without Internet access. My sister the attorney spends quite a bit of time looking up obscure old laws to help me out with some research point or the other. And I used to phone my Oma [grandmother] in Germany quite often to ask about German etiquette and culture in the pre-WWII time period. I think I inherited my love of books and history from her. I'm glad my Oma lived to see the book sold; I only wished she could have seen the dedication to her.

Marian: I think, if my folks were still alive, they'd be a bit bemused. You know: "You're writing what?" My elderly aunt was thrilled that my book was going to be published, but went on to advise me, "Dear, you really ought to teach a class at the junior college." My husband has been incredibly supportive, especially when it seems like I spend more time with Karin than with him. But he's seen me work toward this goal for as long as we've been together. He's trained now. "Honey, do you know where my-- ooops, you're writing. {hug} See you later!" (The hugs are the best part.)

Tell us about plans for future books.

Well, we're not contracted for anything right now. We started separate solo projects, but at the moment, we're working on the rewrites requested by an electronic publisher for the vampire epic (YAY!) which is turning into in a dark fantasy series that begins with In a Mirror, Darkly. The epic is mutating into a trilogy, and we have at least two more books planned. We also have several more co-authored novels in the planning stages, including a medieval romance, a sequel to Sweeter Than Wine(it could turn into a saga, too), and some comedies. (Well, the notes for them are funny.)

How can readers get in touch with you?

Write to Michaela August at P O Box 11725, Santa Rosa, CA 95406.
Also, we're both online! You can visit our website:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Square/3524/index.html
or email us at either kwelss@aol.com or mariangibb@aol.com. We'd love to hear what you think about Sweeter Than Wine!

Thank you, Karin and Marian, and best of luck! Readers, for a look at what TRR thought of Sweeter Than Wine, check out our review on the Historicals page.

May 25, 1999