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Background
FROM
MUSIC TEACHER TO ROMANCE NOVELIST
 The
banner above says it all. Romance novelist, gardener, lover of cats. I suppose I could leave it that and let you wonder whether I have a life beyond the pages of my books. Believe me, sometimes I even wonder that myself. Instead, I'll give you a little peek into my everyday life. And if you read closely, you may find a little bit of that life in the lives of my characters.
I didn't always dream about being a romance novelist. After majoring in music in college, I settled into a job teaching elementary school children about quarter notes and treble clefs. I loved teaching, especially those long summer vacations. It was then that I picked up my first romance novel, ASHES IN THE WIND, by Kathleen
Woodiwiss. Needless to say, I was hooked.
I gave up my lazy summers after six years of teaching when I took a job as an assistant buyer with a major department store chain. Suddenly my days were consumed with coordinating sales for the ladies' coats and furs department. But I was still reading romance at night. By now, I'd discovered Rosemary Rogers, Valerie Sherwood, Laurie McBain and Johanna Lindsey.
When the department store merged with another chain, I moved on to a job at an advertising agency. After that came another job in advertising, a job with a non-profit organization, and a position running a corporate marketing communications department. It was during that second advertising job that I bought my own computer and decided to try writing a romance.
That tiny little Mac Plus spit out a lot of awful writing, but I kept at it, determined to finish a book while dreaming of a fulltime career as a romance writer. I started out writing
historicals, but after so many failed attempts, I decided to try something a little shorter - and funnier. So I went out and bought about 40 Harlequin Temptations and started reading. I joined Romance Writers of America, I found a local critique group and about seven months later, I finished my first short contemporary. Less than a year later, I sold the book to Harlequin Temptation and it
became INDECENT EXPOSURE.
That was 1992 and about 41 books ago. The day before Christmas in 1993, I left the 9-to-5 world for good. When I got home that day after work, I tore up all my pantyhose and turned off my alarm clock and informed my cats that I was going to be hanging around the house a lot more. And so my life as a romance novelist, gardener and lover of cats began. My terrific editors at Harlequin - Brenda Chin, Birgit Davis-Todd, and Marsha
Zinberg, have kept me very busy since then and if you visit the page on my upcoming releases, you'll see that I'm going to be busy writing romance in the future, too.
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