Lynn Erickson, our alter ego, was conceived and born twenty-
some years and forty-some books ago. Lynn Erickson sprang
from us, her birth mothers, fully-grown, fully dressed,
doubly opinionated and stuffed with stories. In the late
60s, both newly returned from bumming around the world, we
met in Aspen, Colorado, in the Red Onion, an Old West
saloon. We were both new brides, wet behind the ears. It
was several years later that we dreamed up Lynn Erickson,
the pseudonym a combination of our husbands' names. We had
read every romance put out in the early 70s and started
saying, " We can do better than this." Well, of course, we
couldn't, but what the heck? We wrote two fat novels before
we chanced onto an agent and made a sale. His first words
to us: "The manuscript is flawed, but..."
Our first books were historical romances, full of blood and
guts and murder, then we turned to contemporary women's
suspense. We've set almost all of our books in Colorado,
especially in Aspen, a town where the truth is usually
stranger than fiction. Aspen is a character in our books,
not just a setting. And we love to drop inside jokes about
the quirks and fancies of our hometown.
The scenery truly is glorious, the mountains magnificent,
the skiing and hiking and fishing and horseback riding
legendary. We cover the arts, too -- the world-renowned
music
festival, the shops full of museum-quality paintings and
sculptures. Southwestern art is big, of course: paintings
and pottery and Navajo rugs.
We've done several stories about the Anasazi Indians
because the subject fascinates us. We've written about the
death penalty in Colorado, vigilante justice at the Food
and Wine Festival in Aspen, an illegal adoption ring in
Tucson, Arizona, a stalker with multiple personality
disorder in Denver, a kidnapped child in Monument Valley,
gold mining in Cripple Creek, Moki poachers in Utah's
Canyonlands National Park. You name it--if there's a story
of adventure or intrigue, we've made it into a book.
Our research has found us taking notes deep in a played out
gold mine, sneaking into the DA's office in Boulder,
cornering Cripple Creek's handsome sheriff, interviewing
the public defender in Denver. People love to talk when you
tell them you're researching a novel.
Please don't hesitate to e-mail us to say hello, and peace
be with you,
Carla and Molly (Molly Swanton and Carla Peltonen)
© 2003-2026