I was born in the 1950s in a small town in Iowa and grew up there living a 'Beaver Cleaver existence' (as described by one friend). Riding bikes to the swimming pool, fishing in farm ponds, popcorn on the courthouse lawn while listening to the local band playing, square dancing in the intersection outside the library. A typical, Midwestern existence.
College beckoned in the 1970s and continued to beckon for many years. I earned five college degrees (B.A., M.A., B.S., M.S., A.A.S.), usually while working at a University (and they paid the tuition -- such a deal!) My fields of study were varied: Information Theory, English Literature, and Horticulture. I was able to parlay the education into technical writing jobs.
In 2003 I read my first romance novel and was startled this genre existed. It was something I'd never encountered, even with degrees in British and American fiction. I immediately decided this was the genre for me.
But there was a problem: the books I read all featured young heroines, interested in starting a family and having babies (it seems like babies just about always figured into it someplace). This was not a group of people I could relate to. They were very spunky and courageous, and all that jazz but the whole baby thing -- nope.
So I started writing about older women, with some age on 'em, who are interested in men, and sex and having a good relationship (which may or may not include a marriage). I started writing romantic suspense, with an occasional side-track into my first love, Sci-Fi/alternate America. I have a long-running, never-ending saga about a post-apocalyptic America that I keep returning to, working on it when I get frustrated with our current society, laws, and politics. It's so much fun to create a world where I can kill off a large amount of the population and restructure the remaining society into what I think will work. It's very cathartic.
Thirty-some books have found a home so far. Speaking of home, mine is in Iowa, where I returned after sojourns in Europe, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
Am I busy? Yep.
Do I enjoy it? You bet.
