Mina, the award-winning author and mixed-media artist, lives on a farm in the Appalachian Mountains with her husband, where they raise rescue dogs, miniature horses, donkeys, and goats. In her corner of the world, she enjoys long winter nights by the fireplace, football games during fall, March Madness in the springtime, sunsets filled with fireflies during summer evenings accompanied by concerto of crickets and frogs, and lazy nights in her porch swing.
From Mina
“I’ve been a hardcore romance addict since I was fifteen, cutting my reading teeth on every Harlequin romance I could get my hands on. I devoured three to four books a day during summer breaks. Elizabeth Lowell. The Rocking M Collection. Never play cards with a man named Cash unless he’s good-looking, of course. Diana Palmer. I named my son after a hero in her Long Tall Texan series.
But it was never my childhood dream to become a writer; I didn't know this is what I wanted to do until much later in life. In junior high and high school, the creative writing tasks that made everyone else groan were something I relished (thank you, Mrs. Mendez!). I also had other areas of interest that pulled me towards architecture. Crafting things with my hands brought me enjoyment and filled me with the desire to design homes.
Many years later, after graduating college with degrees in technology and business, I felt the pull of writing once again. But I was hesitant to try. I could write business proposals and reports in my sleep, but I had no idea how to put the stories in my head into words. I had to learn how to harness the creative part of my brain. I decided to focus on the craft of writing- in secret. I wrote for hours at night in my laundry room.
Finally, I my let my husband in on my dirty little secret. “I write sexy romance.” He convinced me to take the next step and submit to a publisher.
I started my writing career in 2008 when I published my first book with a small press publisher. I churned out two more books between a full-time job, baseball and football games, and graduate school. I wrote on my lunch breaks, in class, and at my son’s athletic competitions.
Those were the days.
I wrote my master’s thesis along with a book that had been in rolling around in my head for years, The Heartbreak Cowboy.
Soon after, I attended a Romance Writers of America conference and sat in on a class with Liz Maverick. She was such a dear and so supportive. I came back home armed with stacks of notes and wrote a proposal for the Coldiron Cowboy series. I submitted to agents, and in a few weeks, I signed with a literary agency.
I was thrilled!
I was also blessed to work with an outstanding agent who helped me navigate through the arduous process of conference calls, emails, and rejections from publishers. During one of those conference calls, I was given the opportunity to do a major rewrite for one of the top five publishers in the business. However, after months of writing, I was told the rewrite was a no-go and that I needed to write a Debbie Macomber sort of novel or maybe a shape-shifting cowboy romance.
I love Debbie’s stories, but no.
I’M. NOT. DEBBIE
My cowboys might howl at the moon, but they don’t turn into werewolves. At least, not in the Coldiron Cowboys series.
I was devastated. Not that the acquiring editor wasn’t happy with my rewrite, but that she wanted me to change my writing style to mimic someone else’s.
In 2018, I became an indie author and published The Heartbreak Cowboy under my publishing company, CurtissLynn Publishing. I’ve learned so much since then. The most important being that my voice and my stories are as unique as I am. And there’s nothing wrong with that."
