Jessica Darago lives just outside Washington DC with her partner, Mathew, and an unusually opinionated stuffed lion. Born and raised on Long Island, she’s been writing almost since she first picked up a crayon and now makes her living helping college professors create study guides and reference materials. After decades of squashing her fiction-writing urge — just barely escaping graduate school without a Fine in the middle of her Master of Arts — she rose to the challenge of the International 3-Day Novel Contest in 2005. Her novella, A Compelling Yarn, a pastiche of Austen’s Emma set at a … Read more »

Young adult author Erica O’Rourke reads anything she can get her hands on – including cereal boxes and train schedules. But she writes what she loves: dark urban fantasy about girls who fall for boys they shouldn’t, learn to use their loud voices, and take control of their fate.  She likes the Oxford comma, anything ginger-flavored, driving stick shift, and flawed characters who have to make hard choices. Whenever possible, she avoids iceberg lettuce, live fish, algebra, and emoticons. Erica lives outside of Chicago with her husband, three daughters, and two very, very bad cats. To learn more about her, … Read more »

An 11th generation Texan, Angi Morgan utilizes her strong heritage to create passionate characters willing to risk everything.  She writes Intrigues where danger and honor collide with love. When the house is quiet, she plots ways to engage her readers with complex story lines, throwing her characters into situations they’ll never overcome…until they find their one and only. Visit Angi at www.angimorgan.com

Angi’s manuscript,  SEE JANE RUN, finaled in Category Series Romance: Suspense/Adventure. It also SOLD (Wahoo!!!!) to Harlequin Intrigue and is a September 2010 release as HILL COUNTRY HOLDUP:

A mother’s worst nightmare.  When research chemist Jane Palmer’s

Lynda Bailey lives in Reno, NV with her husband, Pat, her son, Will, two dogs, Cerveza and Athena, and her cat, Groucho. After graduating in 1980 with a bachelor in technical theatre from the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, IA, Lynda moved to Reno and got a job working on Don Arden’s huge stage show, Hello Hollywood Hello. This is where she met her husband Pat. Their “cute meet” story wasn’t so much cute as it was painful – for Lynda. They were bouldering (a milder form of rock climbing) with some friends near Pyramid Lake when she … Read more »

Lizbeth Selvig is living her dream life in Webster, Minnesota (40 miles Southwest of Minneapolis) with her husband of 35 years, a hyperactive Border Collie, a huge yard but no riding lawn mower, and her very own office now that her children are grown and the bedrooms cleared of My Little Ponies and Magic The Gathering posters.

She doesn’t have to work outside the home at this point in her life but, somehow, she’s never bored and rarely spends a full day at home. A paying job, which would provide welcome discretionary cash for conferences and travel, would definitely take … Read more »

Today I’m thrilled to introduce you to my fellow Rose City Romance Writer, Mary Oldham. I always knew Mary was special, but after reading her bio, now I know why. She’s a Beaver!!!

(Ahem…for those of you who didn’t go to school in Oregon…Oregon State University = the Beavers. I’ll shut up now and let Mary have the floor…)

A fourth generation Oregonian, Mary grew up in Eugene, but has made her home in Portland for the last nineteen years.  In 1991, she earned a Bachelor of Science from Oregon State University, majoring in Business with a Marketing Concentration … Read more »

CJ Eernisse Chase became a writer in an unlikely fashion: with a degree in statistics and a career in information technology. But after coworkers discovered she was a member of that rare species—a computer programmer who could also craft a grammatically-correct sentence—she spent more time writing computer manuals than computer code. Leaving the corporate world to stay home with her children, CJ quickly learned she did not possess the housekeeping gene, so she decided to take the advice of her ninth grade English teacher and write articles and stories people actually wanted to read. A member of Romance Writers of … Read more »

Okay, before we get to the spotlight today, I just have to say thanks so much to the golden heart spotlighters we’ve had so far! Keely, Linda, Sharon & Lisa – I’ve really enjoyed getting to know you better and can’t wait to meet you (hopefully) in Orlando! Now that my book is done and turned in (TEMPTED – Book 3, Eternal Guardians, as of today, wahoo!) I can relax a little and get back to enjoying the blogosphere.

And now, as they say in tinseltown, on with the show…

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Writer Jennifer Jakes lives outside St. Louis, Missouri on … Read more »

I got the call this morning!

My uber-cool, UBER-talented rock of a crit partner just rang me. She finaled in the RS category of the Golden Heart with her book, Safe in Enemy Arms.

WAY TO GO, JOAN!!!!!!!!!!!!… Read more »

Nominations are announced Wednesday, March 25th. This was my first year judging the RITAs so I’m curious if any of the books I read will final. There were some really good ones in my box. I’m also crossing fingers and toes for all my writer friends as they wait for “the call”.

How about you? Are you eager to hear the nominations? Did you enter either the GH or RITA? If so, share the category so I can root for you next Wednesday!… Read more »