Beat Slay Love

Once upon a time five cooks stood around a roiling stew and each one grabbed for the spoon.

That's the way it seemed to Kate, Taffy, Lise, Katy, and Gary, five authors and friends who embarked on a multi-year project to write a novel together. It took patience, and laughter, and a little spice, hard work, and trust, but eventually, well, they stuck a fork in it. It was done!

This imaginative project stretched all of us in a variety of ways. We wrote some from our own points on the map: Texas,...