If you’ve been following my posts you know that on October 13th I had the wonderful opportunity of reading an excerpt from my latest release, Bella’s Band, at the Lady Jane’s Salon OC.

Lady Jane’s Salon is a forum for romance fiction authors to read from their own works in a relaxed, clubby, bohemian venue. Think 1950s Greenwich Village, and you’ll have a picture of Lady Jane’s Salon.

The first Salon was founded in February 2009 in New York City by best-selling romance authors Hope Tarr, Leanna Rene Hieber, and Maya Rodale, and book blogger and literary critic Ron Hogan.

The Orange County salon is the brainchild of author Beth Yarnall. Author Sylvie Fox originated the idea of recording the readings. On the second Monday of each month, romance fans gather at the Gypsy Den Café in Anaheim, California to hear four authors read from a wide range of books in the romance genre.

This month it was my Regency Romance, Debra Holland’s sweet historical western, Sylvie Fox’s erotic romance set in current day Los Angeles, and Linda McGlaughlin’s awesome historical romance set in the pre-revolutionary period of the French and Indian War.

Reading aloud for an audience was an enlightening experience. Reading my work aloud is part of my editing process, but that is not done in front of an audience. Words that presented no problems when read silently or aloud for myself became problematic when I prepped for this reading. In my blurb, I had the words “heiress” and “Harris” too close together, so I made changes.

I also had two characters’ names in the same scene, ahem, “Betty” and “Veronica”. Hello? Why didn’t I just go ahead and call the hero “Archie”? I didn’t notice the association when I wrote the story, nor did my editor, so I don’t think it’s something a reader fully-engaged in the story would stumble over. But, I was so afraid I would giggle at the absurdity of these two Regency characters’ names that I changed all the “Veronica” references to “her sister.”

A podcast of the event is available here. If you listen in you’ll hear chairs dragging, dishes clinking, and all the usual background noise of an active café. It’s that kind of event–warm, homey, and comfortable. And they serve alcohol. (I did, however, hold off on buying a great local craft beer until after I’d read!)

Besides New York and Orange County, there are Lady Jane’s Salons in Denver, Chicago, Raleigh/Durham, NC, Grenville, SC, Phoenix, Silver Springs, MD, and Scranton, PA. If you’re ever traveling to on of those cities, stop by and check it out.