User Profile

I have been a lifelong writer. At fifteen, I penned my first 'romance,' a short story about a female newspaper reporter in New York City and her fight to make a name for herself in a world of male journalists - and with one hardheaded editor in particular. Looking back, I should have known then that writing was in my future. But as so often happens, fate sent me detouring down another path.

Fully intending to pursue my dream of big city lights and success in the literary world, I took every creative writing class available at the small private women's college I attended in upstate New York. Instead, other dreams took precedence. I met and subsequently married a wonderful guy who'd attended a neighboring school, then completed my practice teaching, a requirement for the education degree I never intended to use. But I fell in love with teaching the first day I was up in front of a class, and knew I was meant to do that.

I went on to build a successful career in the New York state school system, thoroughly enjoying my work with adolescents. But by the early 1990s, I'd again made room in my life for writing. It was then that I submitted my first manuscript to publishers and agents. Despite enduring two years of rejections, I persevered. And on a snowy December afternoon in 1994, I sold my first book to Harlequin Superromance.

Since that first sale, I have written twenty books for Harlequin, seven mainstream contemporary romances for the Berkley Publishing Group, and two online novellas, which Berkley has published in trade paperback format and reissued in mass market.

My work is known for its powerful characterizations - readers say they feel they know the people in my books - and my heart-wrenching, emotional writing (my favorite comments are that fans cried while reading my books or stayed up late to finish them). I've won five Romantic Times Magazine Reviewers Choice Awards, three Holt Medallions, two Desert Quill Awards, the Golden Leaf Award, the Booksellers Best Award and several online accolades.

Even in light of my writing success, my initial love of teaching never wavered. I finished out my teaching career in 2004, retiring from the same school where my career began. These days, I live in upstate New York with my husband and two children. My life is very full, but very happy. I consider myself fortunate to have been able to pursue and achieve my dreams.

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