Romance Writing Class

I am committed to thinking about the life of a reader on this blog. As someone who has different writing projects and goals I do read books on the craft and business of writing but I am committed to my mindset as a reader when I publish a blog post.

However my writing life does effect the ways that I evaluate books and the choices that make in my reading life. One of the things that continuously influences me is my addiction to taking classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis MN. This past Saturday I took a class on Writing the Romance. In addition to coming away with some new connections and new ideas for my writing I also came away having purchased a new list of books on my train ride back to St Paul. I can sufficiently break these books into the following categories:
1) The book that the teacher used to help model the teaching material. (Romancing the Beat)
2) The book the teacher strongly recommended for writers at the querying stage of the process. This is where I've been stuck at so I bought Crush Your Query right away
3) The book the teacher strongly recommended in the field (Nobody's Baby But Mine)
4) The book the teacher wrote
5) Recomendations from other people in the class (Books by Julie James, Nora Roberts and the book Finding Fraser)

I know I was just saying I need to follow my own reading lists more but classes like this are the huge exception. I feel like to get the most out of a class that it does take following up on connections, considering my own work in light of the material I just read and taking seriously anything the teacher reccomends to read is the best way to milk everything I can out of a class. So I read on...