Available 1/4/08
Cobblestone Press

Available 2/08
Cobblestone Press

Coming June 2008
Cobblestone Press

Available Now
Cobblestone Press

Available Now
Amazon.com

Available Now
Amazon.com

I was born in the hills of Virginia back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Even then I wanted to write…it was just harder then, what with the stone tablets and chisels and all.

Still, I persevered and finished my first manuscript in 1989 which I called Wind’s Song. It was atrocious, but it was a whole book—my Mom still has a copy (my biggest fan!).

It was proclaimed a horrible failure by my critique group at the time. One girl, whose name I have not ever forgotten but will never allow myself to utter said, “If this is how you think a relationship between a man and a woman should be, you should probably seek psychiatric help.”

I wish I was joking, but alas, that is a quote.

After many more years of writing and ignoring the psychiatric profession—possibly to my detriment—I finished and submitted another manuscript I had written called “Break Even, A Story of Overcoming,” to every publisher known to mankind. I was getting great feedback that not only didn’t suggest medical help was needed, but also suggested that “While this book isn’t quite right for us, we’d like to see your next project.”

In the writing game, that’s considered good news—not great news, but definitely good news.

Since it was going nowhere in traditional circles, I decided to try a new venue that had just been born called “print on demand” publishing. I paid $99 to have the book typeset and put into on-line bookstores for purchase. Since then, a lot of POD pubs have come out—some not as great as others, I hear, but the only one I knew about at the time was iuniverse, so they became the home for Break Even.

By the way, print on demand publishing brings out some strong emotions in people (most of them writers…readers don’t care so much). So tread carefully and know what you want to accomplish should you ever decide to go that route yourself…it can be great if done for the right reasons. (My humble opinion.)

The book sold well enough for me. I sold some, hubby sold some out of his delivery truck (my first distributor! Ha!), Mom sold quite a few, and www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com and www.booksamillion.com sold quite a few and still carry it. Also, many college libraries in Virginia bought the book and have it on their shelves...how totally cool is that? I certainly made back my initial investment a few times over (okay, quite a few times over), and I got great feedback from readers who didn’t care how the book got published.

All in all, for a book no publisher wanted, Break Even was a success to me.

It really solidified in my mind how much I love the whole thing—writing, editing, creating something from nothing, and talking to readers—oh joy! It was a wonderful experience.

Since then, I put another book, Run to Love, with iuniverse in January 2005, and it also did well, especially with all those who loved Break Even. (Although, I have to say I always felt that while Break Even was a labor of love, it was never as good as Run to Love turned out to be. Maybe that’s how it goes…you get better. I hope that’s it anyway.) I never submitted Run to Love to any other publishers; such was my happiness with the POD process. Now, I hear that iuniverse is considerably more expensive than it was in Jan 2005, so I can’t say that it is still a great way to go…I leave that to every writer’s discretion. I'll always have a sweet spot in my heart for them.

At this time in my writing life, though, I've gotten interested in the traditional publishers again, and the wave of the future—the ebook. E-publishers are popping up all over the place, and it’s always interesting to see what new opportunities present themselves to writers. I recently had one of my manuscripts, Hawkes Abandon, published with one of these publishers. Very exciting! Also, they've purchased a few other of my stories, "Pay Dirt" is one, and a story I wrote for their Vampire series called "Sunlight." Oh, and one more I almost forgot: "Paid in Full," a story for the Valentine Chronicles.

So, all in all, who am I? I’m a writer. I even like writing Christmas letters every year, although some readers (my brother-in-law for instance) ask, “Why does she have to write a BOOK every year in these things?” This is also a direct quote, but he’s not really a very happy person anyway, so that’s okay. At least he didn’t say I needed therapy.