Winnie Griggs Interviews Lacy Williams of Inspy Kisses

Hello, Winnie Griggs here. I was very excited when the folks here at Fresh Fiction asked me to do a monthly post with news of what’s currently happening in the Inspirational Romance market, a topic that’s obviously very near and dear to my heart. I hope to bring you information from publishers, editors, traditionally published authors and indie authors as well. And along the way, if there are any industry professionals you’d like to hear from or if you have questions about trends or happenings within the genre, drop me a line and I’ll do my best to accommodate you.

To start off, I turned to a group of authors who have banded together to publish their own work, a group known as the Inspy Kisses. One of their number, Lacy Williams, has graciously agreed to serve as spokesperson for the group and answer a few questions for me.

How and why did this group come together?

Lacy:The Inspy Kisses author co-op was formed for the purpose of growing our audience. We asked authors from all three Love Inspired lines (Contemporary, Historical and Suspense) to be a part of the group to cross-promote to each other's readers. We started with six authors and have grown to eight for our most recent collection, and we've gotten really good reader reviews that showed some who read us individually had never heard of another of the authors in the collection until they read our anthology--so we know it worked. A secondary goal was to try and hit a bestseller list and we did that with our MISTLETOE KISSES anthology that released November 25. It hit the USA Today list.

What do you feel this group has to offer readers that they can't get anywhere else?

Lacy:We saw other author groups offering reprints or re-releases in their anthologies and wanted to be different, so our anthologies are brand new novella collections--works that had never been released before. Our authors wanted to offer readers more of what they love--romance, suspense, etc. And we wanted the collections to be a deal. Even at full price, you can't beat the value for the stories you get.

How many collections have you published to date and what are your plans for the future?

Lacy:In 2014 we published FIRST KISSES (March 2014), SEALED WITH A KISS (July 2014) and MISTLETOE KISSES (November 2014). In 2015 we will have two collections release in the second half of the year and we have plans for something new in 2016.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions Lacy. As a final note, how can readers learn more about your group and their work?

Lacy:Readers can find out more about Inspy Kisses at our website.

About Winnie

Winnie Griggs grew up in south Louisiana in an undeveloped area her friends thought of as the back of beyond. She and her two younger siblings spent many an hour exploring the overgrown land around her home, cutting jungle trails, building forts and frontier camps, and looking for pirate ships on the nearby bayou. Once she ‘grew up' she found other outlets for dealing with all those wonderful, adventurous imaginary friends by filling notebooks with their stories.

Eventually she found her own Prince Charming, a rancher whose white steed takes the form of a tractor and whose kingdom is situated in a small rural community that she loves to call home, and together they've built their own storybook happily–ever–after that includes four now grown children, two of whom are twins.

Now a multi–published, award winning author, Winnie feels blessed to be able to share her stories with readers through her writings for Love Inspired Historical books.