I credit my husband Joe and my love of travel with starting
my career as a romance novelist; it was his comments on a
letter describing a trip to New Orleans that made me
realize I might actually have the talent necessary to write
something more than office memos and computer manuals.
My first book was published by Harlequin Temptation in
October, 1984.
When it made #7 on Waldenbooks' Romance Bestseller List at
about the same time my second novel was being contracted
for, I decided to chuck the 9-to-5 business world in favor
of a full-time writing career.
It turned out to be the best decision I'd made since
marrying Joe. Most of the time, I get to work at home with
the cats sleeping in the sun on the window ledge and the
dog curled up in her bed by my desk. What could be better?
On a more personal note, I was born in Santa Cruz,
California, but spent most of my growing-up years on a farm
in Hayward, a little town across the Bay from San
Francisco. Since meeting and marrying Joe, however, I have
lived in almost every corner of the country, from a
schooner anchored in Hawaii's Ala Wai Harbor, to a loft in
New York's Greenwich Village, to the foot of Mt. Bachelor
in Oregon, to deep in the heart of Dallas, Texas, to the
Maryland suburbs outside of Washington D.C., to the home of
Thoroughbreds and blue grass in Louisville, Kentucky, to
southern New Jersey, to the heart of California's wine
country in the beautiful Sonoma valley to, currently, the
frequently frozen tundra of Minnesota where we reside with
two outrageously spoiled cats and an 80-pound Doberman who
thinks she's a lap dog.
I have also been fortunate enough to have traveled
extensively, visiting many foreign locales including
Canada, Panama, Singapore, Malaysia, the British Isles,
France, Italy and Austria.
In between packing and unpacking, I've written twenty-six
contemporary romance novels, numerous articles, user's
guides of various types, and lots of marketing material.
Most recently, I wrote a cookbook based on my father's
fifty-plus years of experience in the restaurant business.
When I'm not writing, traveling or cooking, I enjoy
reading, hosting dinner parties and going to plays,
concerts and movies. I also like to attend educational
classes and seminars, the more off-beat, the better,
because you never know when some interesting bit of
information will come in handy for a new book. Among my
more interesting classes have been courses in How To Be A
Private Detective, Limousine Driver Training, Handgun Use
and Safety, Belly Dancing, Modern Witchcraft, Chinese
cooking and Past Life Regression; all subjects which haveβ
or willβcome up in one of my books. For me, research (along
with not having to wear panty hose!) is one of the special
perks of a writing career.
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