Emily Mims

Writing was not San Antonio teacher Emily Mims’ first love-in fact, she wrote her first novel on a dare. “I had just finished a romance novel and it was so awful I pitched it across the floor and said I could do better. My husband Charles promptly dared me to do so.” She did and although that book didn’t sell, she sold her second book and seventeen more to Candlelight Ecstasy Romances under the name ‘Emily Elliott’. These books were translated into six languages and sold millions of copies all over the world, and Emily discovered to her delight that she had many stories to tell and that she loved telling them. But Emily never left the classroom, and when the Candlelight Ecstasy line closed in 1986 she continued with her demanding teaching career and raising two young sons and her storytelling fell by the wayside. “But the desire to write never really left,” she admits. “I would be driving down the street making up stories in my head. Now that I’m no longer in the classroom, I am ready to tell my stories again.” Again inspired by the thought that she could do better, Emily pitched another novel across the floor and under her own name wrote Solomon’s Choice, set in the Texas Hill Country where Emily and Charles have a second home. “I love the Hill Country and hope to set several more books there,” she says. “I also enjoyed incorporating suspense into the story.” She draws inspiration from the people and places in her life and from the things she loves to do. “Sometimes my characters are loosely based on someone I know, although by the end of the first chapter they have taken on a life of their own,” she laughs. “Places aren’t that contrary.” She also loves to combine her love of writing with some of the other things she loves to do. “I play dulcimer and ukulele in a folk music group and hope to use this as a background in future work.” Emily lives in San Antonio with her husband Charles and their five dogs but spends time both in the Hill Country and in Eastern Tennessee. She would love to hear from each and every one of her readers! Visit her online at www.emilymims.com.