Authors
Linda Acaster: Linda Acaster’s published work includes four historical novels, and over sixty short stories in genres as diverse as women’s, horror, crime, fantasy and SF, published in magazines in the UK, US and Europe.
She has also written travel features and opinion pieces for the UK press, and an abundance of articles on the techniques of writing fiction.
A past tutor for the Arvon Foundation, she has led workshops and spoken at writers’ conferences across the north of England. She spent six years on the reading panel for the New Writers’ Scheme administered by the Romantic Novelists’ Association, and two years as the co-ordinator of its Northern Chapter. She is a member of the Society of Authors.
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Jasmine Ahearn has been making up stories since she can remember, and is now thrilled that other people would like to read about the men and women running amok in her head. She has a BA in Creative Writing and is studying for a Masters.She lives in Cardiff with a small but impressive mountain of books, a bearded dragon called Kai, and far too many hats. You can reach her at jasmine@jasmineaherne.com
Kayelle Allen: I was born in Idaho, and grew up in the Southwest, but I traveled all over the world, and have lived in the South for 30 years. My husband and I make our home north of Atlanta, Georgia, near our three children.
I'm the mother of two boys and a girl, and have two granddaughters and three grandsons. You'd be surprised how many grandmothers write erotica and erotic romance. We don't often tell people because folks think that a grandmother doesn't know about sex. Well, guess what? It's the 21st century and I aint no "granny." Bother you? Get over it. I joined the women's rights movement at 18, campaigned for an amendment to the constitution for 18-year-olds to vote (which was passed when I was 20), and spent 4 years in the US Navy. I am strongly in favor of marriage equality and gay rights. You won't hear much from me about politics or religion. Not that I don't possess strong viewpoints on both, but they're mine, and I don't argue over things that are my right to have.
My college major was adult education with a minor in English, and I was on the Dean's List. I managed that with 3 kids under the age of 7. I was a work-at-home mom till my youngest started school. Now I'm a full-time writer. My hubby spent the last two years getting his Medical Assistant certificate, and graduated at 60. Imagine starting a brand new career at 60? My husband is amazing. We are both go-getters who do whatever it takes to get the job done, and we are a team. If part of a team is winning, the whole team is winning.
Jo Barrett currently resides in North Carolina with her patient and supportive family while she juggles her writing career and her position as a programmer analyst. She has won numerous awards and continues to write whenever she can. Someday, she hopes to take off her programming hat and write full time. So many of her dreams have already come true. What's one more?
Lelani Black was born and raised in the tropics and spent many lazy days on island beaches sunbathing. She met her mis-match in a club in Waikiki, Hawaii, and they've been making beautiful loud music ever since with a handful of amazing kids and a dog named Maili. While she and her software developer husband live in Colorado, she goes home to the Hawaiian islands every chance she gets.
When not shuttling kids to games or motocross races, she's gourmet cooking, gardening, or trying to grow grape wines. She can be found in the midnight hour in front of her computer spinning spicy stories that require romantic backdrops and sexy heroes and heroines.
Allie Boniface was born and raised in a very small town in upstate New York, which probably explains her fascination with the magic of small town life. She spent most of her youth reading anything and everything she could get her hands on, and it was only a matter of time before she began writing as well…poetry, short stories, pieces of screenplays, and the beginnings to lots and lots of novels.
She earned her B.A. in English, with a minor in Education, from the University of Rochester in New York and then moved to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, where she earned her M.A. in English Literature. After two years teaching in the Ohio community college system, she spent a summer in Providence, Rhode Island, and finally landed in downstate New York, where she currently lives.
Since 1997, Allie has enjoyed life in the northern NYC suburbs, where she teaches English and Education full-time to high school students. In her spare time, she and her husband travel extensively (favorite vacation spots include Hawaii, the Outer Banks, and Western Europe, especially Germany). When she finds a few extra minutes to breathe, she is also a runner, a musician, an animal-lover, and a union activist.
Around the turn of the century, Allie finally decided to listen to the writing muse on her shoulder. Since the power of human connections and the complexity of the human heart always fascinated her, creating love stories seemed to come naturally. She has since released 5 contemporary romance novels, two of which are available in audio book format at www.audiolark.com.
Mina Carter was born and raised in Middle Earth (otherwise known as the Midlands, England). After a slew of careers ranging from logistics to land-surveying she can now be found in the wilds of Leicestershire with her husband and young daughter…the true boss of the family.
Suffering the curse of eternal curiosity Mina never tires of learning new skills which has led to Aromatherapy, Corsetry, Chain-maille making, Welding, Canoeing, Shooting, and pole-dancing to name but a few. A veteran Star Trek RPGer, she’s run both games and groups of games but now finds her home in Bravo Fleet, one of the internet’s oldest Star Trek simm groups.
She juggles being a mum, working full time and writing, tossing another ball in the air with her cover artwork. For Mina, writing time is the wee hours of the morning before anyone wakes up and starts making demands, or any spare minute that can be begged, bought or conned.
Her first stories were penned at age 11, when she used a stationery set meant for Christmas thank you letters to write stories instead. More recently, she wrote for her own amusement and to save on outrageous monthly book bills. Now she’s totally addicted and needs her daily writing fix or heads roll!
Kaye Chambers: Kaye Chambers has led a wild life. With her college degree in hand, she set off on an adventure to find herself. She’s soaked in the hot springs in Iceland in the middle of a blizzard, sat on a volcano to watch the magic of the Northern lights, stood on the coast in the eye of a hurricane, and been awed by ruins of pagan temples. Somewhere along the way, she found herself along with her wonderfully supportive husband. Marriage, children, and life went in a different direction and her personal goals went with off in another.
Finally, she decided it was time to return to those goals she’d left behind when she began her adventure all those years ago. Writing. With the new laptop her husband gave her for the effort, she hunkered down and found a writing group. This small group of women took her in hand, helped build her confidence, and encouraged her to do what her heart wanted her to. Finally, she started pounding out pages. When it was done, she had no idea what to do with it.
So, she started entering contests. Then she started revising…and entering more contests. Encouraged by the comments, she started submitting it out to publishers and agents while turning her hand to other projects.
Barbara Clark: I was born in San Diego, California, but basically raised all over the United States; at least that's what it seemed like when I had to list the twenty-three schools I'd attended in my college application.
Most of the moving around was during World War 2 when my father's job took him to the East Coast and back again with a great two and a half years living in Tucson, Arizona.
My sister, brother, and I learned to adapt to new places. We lived at the edge of the Dismal Swamp in North Carolina, fed the ducks in Fenway Park in Boston where I went to Girls Latin School, and experienced our only hurricane in Charleston, South Carolina. We also lived in New York City, then back to the San Diego area, and finally the Los Angeles, and Orange county areas of California.
Some of those years have become part of my fictional characters' backgrounds.
You'd think I'd had enough traveling and moving. Not quite. After teaching in Kindergarten and First Grade in California for five years, I took a job in Nome Alaska. It was a fantastic experience. Nome was where I tasted whale blubber (tastes sort of nut-like), had a ride in an umiak (a forty-passenger boat made out of driftwood with oogrook hide stretched over it) and walked out on the frozen Norton Sound.
Now I'm retired after thirty-four years of teaching, and excited by my new and growing career in writing.
Jennifer Colgan: Having narrowly missed being crushed by an avalanche of Star Trek novels as a teenager, Jennifer Colgan vowed to one day cause the book shelves of avid readers all over the world to collapse under their own weight.
Now multi-published under her own name and as her alter ego, Bernadette Gardner, Jennifer has arrived in the digital age and instead hopes to be responsible for overloading the memory cards of e-book readers everywhere with her paranormal, futuristic and science-fiction romances.
Jennifer currently lives in the NY-NJ Metropolitan area with her husband of eighteen years, two creative children, a slightly neurotic Dalmatian and two spirited black cats.
Alicia Dean: I've been an obsessive reader for as long as I can remember and started writing at a very young age. One of the first books I read that really stuck with me, really made me want to write, was Sweet, Savage Love by Rosemary Rogers-which I read eight times, starting when I was around thirteen... probably too young for such a racy book 
I now love to read thrillers, paranormals, and contemporary romance. Some of my favorite writers, although it would be impossible to list them all, are Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly, Jonathan Kellerman, Sharon Sala, Jordan Dane, Dean Koontz, Lisa Gardner, Merline Lovelace, Stephen King, and many, many others.
I was thrilled a few years ago when I finally realized my dream of publication. There is nothing I enjoy more than creating stories to share with others. I belong to Oklahoma Romance Writers of America, whose members have been a true blessing and inspiration, particulary one special and very giving lady, best-selling author, Sharon Sala. I've also met a lot of fantastic people through The Wild Rose Press.
I resided in Kansas City for three years, where I joined Heartland Romance Writers and was fortunate to meet a whole new group of warm and talented writer friends. Although I'm now back home in Oklahoma City, I consider Kansas City my second home.
I have three beautiful, grown children and an incredible network of family and friends who have given me loving support and encouragement as I've pursued my dream.
Nell Dixon is a Black Country author, married to the same man for over twenty-five years. She has three daughters, a tank of tropical fish and a cactus called Spike. Winner of the RNA’s prestigious Romance Prize in 2007 and 2010, she writes warm-hearted contemporary romance for a number of publishers in the US and the UK, including Samhain Publishing, Little Black Dress and Freya’s Bower. Her latest titles include Blue Remembered Heels, Animal Instincts, Crystal Clear, Just Look at Me Now and His Darling Nurse.
Angela Knight is the New York Times bestselling author of books for Berkley, Red Sage, Changeling Press, and Loose Id. Her first book was written in pencil and illustrated in crayon; she was nine years old at the time. A few years later, she read The Wolf and the Dove and fell in love with romance. Besides her fiction work, Angela's publishing career includes a stint as a comic book writer and ten years as a newspaper reporter. Several of her stories won South Carolina Press Association awards under her real name.
In 1996, she discovered the small press publisher Red Sage, and realized her dream of romance publication in the company's Secrets 2 anthology. She went on to publish several more novellas in Secrets before editor Cindy Hwang discovered her work there and asked her if she'd be interested in writing for Berkley. Not being an idiot, Angela said yes.
Whatever success she has enjoyed, she attributes to the marvelous editors she's had over the years. David Anthony Kraft and Dwight Zimmerman at Comics Interview taught her the nuts and bolts of fiction writing. Alexandria Kendall of Red Sage discovered her talent for romance writing and encouraged her to believe in herself. And she will be forever grateful to Berkley editor Cindy Hwang, who has been unfailingly supportive.
Angela lives in South Carolina with her husband, Michael, a polygraph examiner and hostage negotiator for the county's Sheriff's Office. The couple have a grown son, Anthony.
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Katriena Knights is the author of several paranormal and contemporary romances. She's particularly fond of vampires, but does manage to write about other things as well. Her current release is Where There's a Will, a contemporary romance set in Scotland, available from Samhain Publishing.
Emma Lai: Emma likes nothing more than a challenge. First,she tackled the male-dominated field of engineering. Next, she expanded her understanding of the world by studying international relations. Finally, her husband dared her to use her experience and knowledge and devote herself to writing. She accepted his challenge and has been writing ever since.
Writing keeps Emma sane. Her characters demand their stories be told and nag her incessantly until she complies. The characters are very insistent about her remaining faithful to their individual adventures. As a result, Emma writes a range of genres and levels of heat. She never know what the next set of characters will demand!
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Shannon Leigh: Shannon Leigh is a practicing registered nurse who graduated with a B.S.N. R.N. from the Indiana University School of nursing in May of 1996. She lives in Indiana with her husband, four sons, dog, and cat. Shannon likes to decorate cakes, scrapbook, draw, read, write, and watch movies.
Despite a hectic schedule, Shannon tries to dedicate a couple of hours every day to writing, usually sometime between the hours of 9 P.M. and 3 A.M., after everyone else is in bed. She likes to curl up on the couch with her laptop, a cup of hot tea, the cat, and become engrossed in her characters.
Along with reading other romance genres, Shannon loves suspense, fantasy, and horror, but paranormal fiction remains her favorite. She has several stories available at Amber Quill Press, Audio Lark, and Wild Child Publishing. While most involve some paranormal aspect, she has dabbled in contemporary, and more recently, science fiction. With such an active imagination, she always has something in works.
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Nicole McCaffrey: If it’s possible to be born a writer, then I certainly was. I’d probably have started sooner if there had been pen and paper available in the womb!
But for as long as I can remember, I have heard voices in my head. Fortunately for me, they’re all characters—begging me to tell their stories. My first sale was a holiday novella, published by The Wild Rose Press in November 2006. The Model Man, my first full length contemporary, was released in March 2008. My true passion has always been history so I’m thrilled with my first historical release coming in June, 2010.
I live in western New York along the beautiful shore of Lake Ontario and have been married to Peter, my best friend, for twelve years. I’m a work-at-home mom with two busy boys ages seven and ten, a hyper border collie mix and a tubby tabby. When I’m not working, writing, or buried nose-deep in a research book, chances are I’m baking, gardening, or just kicking back and hanging with my guys.
Dawn Montgomery was introduced to reading by a grandfather with great character voices and a grandmother who showed her there were no limits to the imagination. Since then she was rarely without a book in hand. It wasn’t until she was stuck in a rut and unable to find anything she enjoyed reading that she decided to take a hand at writing. Since then she’s penned books she loves to read with characters who spark her imagination.
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Bodie Parkhurst has been writing and illustrating stories since third grade. She has worked as a reader, a tutor, a ranch hand, a mechanic, a truck driver, a dairy maid, a writer, an editor, a fine artist, an illustrator, and a designer. In addition to writing, illustrating, and designing her own books, she designs books for NewSage Press (http://www.newsagepress.com), apparel and home decorating items for Magic Dog Press (http://www.magicdogpress.com), and just about anything her clients request, from banners and billboards to annual reports to whitepapers to ads.
Her non-fiction writing has been appearing in various newspapers and magazines under the name "Sherry Wachter" for two decades. She is currently working on her second novel, and a memoir about growing up as a member of a conservative fundamentalist sect--and what ultimately prompted her decision to leave.
Cindy Procter-King: As a child, Cindy dreamed of becoming a writer. Well, okay, thanks to her grade three teacher reading a chapter of The Little House on the Prairie books to Cindy's class each day, Cindy actually dreamed of becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder. It made so much sense. After all, Cindy's blonde older sister always got to wear blue while Cindy with the "dark as cinders" hair was often relegated to wearing dull old pink—just like Laura. Laura was part of a pioneer family, and until Cindy attended school she lived in a minuscule farming community where her father and grandparents were born. What further confirmation for her future does an eight-year-old with an avid imagination require?
When Cindy realized becoming Laura meant learning to travel back in time and using—gasp!—outhouses where she believed evil trolls were hiding to gobble her up, she decided to remain in the present and become a writer instead. Her first poem began, "My father is a logger, He stirs his coffee with his thumb, He has a dog named Blackie, And in his truck they both look dumb." Thus another illustrious literary career was born.
A Golden Heart® finalist and author of rollicking romantic comedies and poignant contemporary romances, Cindy's mission in life is to see her surname spelled properly—with an E. So take heed. That's P-r-o-c-t-E-r. Not, no, never, under any circumstances should you spell it with two O's. Cindy lives in Canada with her husband, their two sons, a cat obsessed with dripping tap water, and Allie McBeagle.
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Judah Raine: Westville is a leafy suburb on the outskirts of Durban where my daughter and I share a house on a riverbank slap-bang in the middle of suburbia. We also share it with "our zoo"a German Shepherd Doberman, one of her offspring from a gorgeous German Shepherd Timber Wolf, and a Great Dane masquerading as a miniature Maltese Poodle. We also have two cats, both of which have personality issues. But that's another long story.
I have a degree in Communications and English, with some Education and Psychology thrown in for fun. The need to earn a living has taken me from managing my husband's plumbing business through an animal science laboratory (who put me there and what were they thinking?) and conferencing, and finally into the property industry. But my nature is essentially creative, and I have tried pretty much everything there is to try in the "arts and crafts" genre.
Beading is a passion, especially on wedding gowns, which I design and make in my "spare time". I am also a guitarist and vocalist, and I am experimenting with combining my love for words with my love for music and writing some of my own songs. As a widow (my husband passed away eleven years ago from bone cancer) and with my daughter now "all grown up", I am finally able to focus on doing what I love bestwriting! It was a passion discovered years and years and years ago growing up on the farm. Through the years it's been my friend, my therapy, my way of self-discovery, and sometimes the only lifeline to sanity!
Lauri Robinson: Lauri Robinson lives a few miles outside of Big Lake, Minnesota with her husband. They have three grown sons and one granddaughter. She is the Resource Development Manager for the local United Way and volunteers for several other area non-profits. Besides writing and spending time with her family, Lauri likes to read, fish, watch NASCAR and is a lifelong Elvis fan.
Judith Rochelle: I live in the Hill Country of Texas where most of my hunky cowboys and other alpha males come from. My real love is Texas, so it’s where many of my stories are set. My background is so varied it’s given me a lot of experiences to choose from when plotting my stories. I’ve been an insurance agent, newspaper reporter for weekly newspapers, a public relations and special events coordinator, manager of rock and Top 40 bands, worked for both a public and private university including vice president for public relations), chaired regional economic development councils and served on several political campaign committees. Several of my books have received Reviewers choice and Top Pick Awards. When I’m not writing I’m an avid reader – anything and everything – and watching football, especially my Michigan Wolverines.
Bryndis Rubin: Books and more books! Bryndis Rubin has always been surrounded by books, beginning with a happy childhood filled with crowded bookshelves and then on to a job as a library page during her high school years. After attaining her English and Political Science degrees from the University of Michigan, she went on to obtain a Master of Arts in Library Science at the University of Missouri-Columbia. And then the adventure began...
Marrying her college sweetheart meant also tying the knot with the United States Marine Corps. Bryndis was soon whisked off into the military world. Moving from duty station to duty station has given her the opportunity to travel the country and obtain diverse library jobs. She has worked as a reference librarian, a children's librarian, and as a branch librarian. After moving to Southern California, Bryndis met author Catherine Snodgrass, who encouraged her to write towards her true interest, romance novels. Bryndis has gotten to know many strange and wonderful people during her journeys. She often uses some of her more colorful acquaintances as inspiration for creating quirky and colorful characters. Moving every three years with the USMC means an endless supply of fresh ideas and interesting locations for her novels.
Currently, Bryndis is living aboard the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, California with her USMC attorney husband and son. Besides her love of writing and reading romances, Bryndis enjoys cooking, working with stained glass, and scouring the Internet in search of interesting tidbits of information for her writing.
Sheridon Smythe: Sherrie Eddington and Donna Smith are the writing team of Sheridon Smythe. They aim to double the reader's pleasure by combining their knowledge and love of romance. Mother of two, Sherrie Eddington lives in Kennett, Missouri and writes full time. Donna Smith also lives in Kennett, is the mother of three and juggles a full time job along with her writing.Sherrie and Donna have written five historicals and two contemporaries under the Jove and Leisure imprints, using their pseudonyms Sheridon Smythe and Adrienne Burns. This prolific writing team looks forward to their brainstorming sessions together and sharing their stories with others. They love hearing from their fans.
Catherine Snodgrass: Readers should expect different locales and deep emotions in Catherine Snodgrass's books. She believes that life is to be lived not watched--hiking a new path, learning a new skill, even conquering a life-long fear of singing in public to take a turn or two on the stage of the community theater. Her work as a paralegal in family and tax law has helped her tune in to the emotions of others and further deepen that aspect of her writing. Catherine lives in the beautiful desert of Southern California. Having set her children off in the world to explore their own paths, she has now been rewarded with a new generation whose imaginations bear evidence that the fruit didn't fall far from that particular tree. Her most recent explorations include learning to make Native American style pottery and basketweaving. Catherine also writes erotic romance as Caitlyn Willows.
Jeanne St. James: I started writing around 13 years old and found it great therapy. Over my high school years I wrote my first novel, a young adult novel, that was pretty raw about a young girl growing up in a gang. That manuscript is now forever lost (and that might be a good thing). During this time I read loads of books, most of them historical romances and category romances (contemporary). I fell in love with the genre. And have been writing ever since…
I now concentrate on the erotic romance genre. Why? Because it’s a blast. There’s nothing like a hot, hot romance to get your juices flowing. But I still like the HEA (Happily Ever After) ending.
I currently reside in Southcentral Pennsylvania with my dog and the love of my life (yes, he has two legs, not four).
My first published erotica piece was a fantasy short story in the July 2006 issue of Playgirl, which was titled “The Hot Ride.” You can find it on my Free Reads page.
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Lindsay Townsend lives in Yorkshire, England, where she was born, and started writing stories at an early age. Always a voracious reader, she took a degree in medieval history and worked in a library for a while, then began to write full-time after marriage.
Her first unpublished historical found her an agent and the second got a publisher in London interested. They wanted her to write with a modern setting, which she did – several romantic thrillers set in Greece, Italy or on Dartmoor in the English West Country - and enjoyed it, but historicals are really her first love. Lindsay is currently writing medieval romance for Kensington, who published ‘A Knight’s Vow’ in 2008 and ‘A Knight’s Captive’ in 2009, a ‘A Knight’s Enchantment’ followed in June 2010, and another knight book will appear in 2011.
She is also fascinated by the ancient world, especially Rome, Egypt and the Bronze Age. ‘Flavia’s Secret’, set in Roman Britain, came out from Bookstrand in 2008, and is due to be published as an audio title by AudioLark. Two more historicals, ‘Blue Gold’, set in ancient Egypt, and ‘Bronze Lightning’, set in Bronze Age Greece and the Britain of Stonehenge, were published by Bookstrand in early 2009. Bookstrand also published two sweet romantic suspenses which have been taken by AudioLark. The first is 'A Secret Treasure', a historical romantic suspense set on the beautiful Greek island of Rhodes, and the second is a modern sweet romantic suspense, ‘Holiday in Bologna,’ due out from AudioLark in Spring 2011.
When not writing or researching her books, she enjoys walking, reading, cooking, music, going out with friends and long languid baths with scented candles (and perhaps chocolate).
Jennifer Traveler: Jennifer Traveler has never met a romance she didn’t like. Historicals, contemporaries, paranormals, classics…as long as it involves desire and passion, she wants to read it.
And not too long ago, she decided she wanted to write it, as well.
Jennifer’s first romance, A Second Dance, is being published by The Wild Rose Press this spring, and she has several more stories underway.
Amber Leigh Williams is a multi-published romance author, a member of Romance Writers of America, former Secretary of the Gulf Coast Chapter of RWA, and a weekly contributor to The Roses of Prose. Her first western romance, Blackest Heart, was the 1st Place More Than Magic Novella in 2009 and her historical romance, Forever Amore, was nominated for Best Book of 2009 by Long & Short Reviews. She is represented by D4EO Literary Agency and lives on the Gulf Coast with her husband, Jacob, and their three labs.
Connie Wood is a romance author, residing in beautiful Australia. She has thrown caution to the wind and traveled the world in some of the most bizarre circumstances. If she wrote about her life experiences on the road, the truth would certainly be stranger than fiction.
Connie has had a multitude of jobs including, the mundane and the not so mundane. She has bided her time as a secretary, librarian, information technology, web designer, student and a director to an international non-profit organisation, among others.
Currently Connie is doing a University Degree by correspondence, as she looks after her tornado of a son.
