Mina Beckett writes contemporary romance in all its forms—Western romance, romantic comedies, small-town love stories, and Southern mysteries—where emotional stakes run high and characters fight for their happily ever after, even when things get messy.
As the founder of CurtissLynn Publishing, Mina has built an independent press dedicated to stories that refuse to fit neatly into one box. Launched in 2018, CurtissLynn is a creative home for genre-blending fiction—contemporary Western romance, Southern mystery, and everything delightfully unexpected in between. It's a space where the story leads, formulas fall away, and every narrative is published exactly as it was imagined: raw, real, and unapologetically itself.
Mina also writes under two additional pen names. As Shelby James, she explores sweeter romance and holiday love stories. Under the name Cager Elliott, she writes psychological thrillers, suspense, and horror—blending Southern Gothic atmosphere with rural noir in character-driven tales that unfold in forgotten corners of the South. From weathered farmhouses to river towns and backwater swamps, these stories explore places where the past refuses to stay buried and the darkness within proves far more terrifying than anything lurking outside. Her short fiction has appeared in Woman's World, Sasee, and Micromance magazines. Each month, she releases Love In A Heartbeat mini romances exclusively for her paid Substack subscribers—bite-sized stories with all the heart and heat her readers crave.
Beyond the page, Mina is a working artist under Mina Beckett Fine Art , creating pieces that reflect the same landscapes and emotions that fuel her storytelling. She connects with readers and fellow creatives through three Substack newsletters: her Romantic Reader Newsletter for cover reveals and book news, Let's Talk Publishing for insights into the indie publishing journey, and her ArtAlive Blog for a behind-the-scenes look at her creative process as a visual artist, and Hardwired for Country Life, (and IG) a blog celebrating country living and self-sufficiency that inspires her storytelling.
Based on an Appalachian farm with her family and livestock, Mina splits her time between the keyboard, the easel, and sketching the next hard-headed cowboy hero in her notebook. CurtissLynn Publishing continues to grow as a platform for independent voices, with new releases and expanded series on the horizon—stories that honor intuition, independence, and the courage to write outside the lines.
