We LOVE New York: A Romance Anthology to Raise Funds for Hurricane Sandy Relief was conceived of by best-selling erotic romance author Trinity Blacio as she watched the devastation pounding the City that Never Sleeps. She wanted to do something for the city that has inspired so many love stories, and made so many people fall in love with it. She teamed up with Lori Perkins, publisher of Riverdale Avenue Books and an award-wining anthologist, to create a way to give back and rebuild.

In these pages you’ll find love stories to New York City by O.M. Grey, Louisa Blacio, Adam Carpenter, Teel James Glenn, Trinity Blacio, Karen Taylor, Latisha Beaty, F. L. Bicknell, Tony Wards, Joy Daniels, and Nicky Penttila (me!). Riverdale Avenue Books will be donating 10% of all revenues collected from the sale of this anthology to the Red Cross Hurricane Sandy Relief Fund.

My story, “The Lunchbox,” is a sweet reunion tale set on Valentine’s Day 2013. Here’s a little about how I came up with the story:

My first memory of giving and getting valentines was in elementary school. They came in boxes of 24, with envelopes and everything. We each had to give everyone in class one, so no one would feel left out. I loved it — two dozen cards to open up! So when I was trying to come up with an idea for a Valentine’s-Day-themed story, my mind shuffled into those cobwebby school corridors in my memory. I wanted to do a story of kids who lost touch and meet again as adults.

Then, on a trip into my day-job’s NY office, I caught sight of something else I treasured in my childhood — one of my old lunchboxes. If you’d asked me to recall it from memory I never could have, and if you’d told me I had a “popular girl” lunchbox I would have hotly denied it. But when I saw it in an exhibit at the New York Public Library’s main branch, the memories came rushing back. Sure it’s girlie, but it does have a game to play on the back, albeit an accursedly girlie game.

Now I had my characters, my hook, and my location. You can read the resulting story in the anthology, We Love New York. And feel doubly-good: Part of the proceeds go to help people hurt by Hurricane Sandy last year.

[I'm not the only one to treasure this lunchbox--Over at The Big Dump Truck you'll find a 2004 interview with a Campus Queen Lunchbox itself.]