Columnist Bios
Alana Matthews
Alana Matthews can’t remember a time that she didn’t want to be a writer. As a child, she was a permanent fixture in her local library, and soon turned her passion for books into writing short stories and finally novels. A longtime fan of romantic suspense, Alana felt she had no choice but to try her hand at the genre and is thrilled to be writing for Intrigue. Alana makes her home in a small town near the coast of Southern California, where she spends her time writing, composing and playing music, and watching her favorite movies. http://www.alanamatthews.com/
Alison Kent
Alison Kent writes sexy, sassy, urban and hip contemporaries for Harlequin Blaze and action adventure stories starring sexy bad boys for Kensington Brava. If there’s a better career to be had, she doesn’t want to know about it. The one she has is almost too much fun to bear. http://www.alisonkent.com
Allison Brennan
Allison Brennan left a thirteen-year career with the California State Legislature to stay home with her five kids and write full time. She sold her first novel, a romantic suspense, to Ballantine (THE PREY, 2006). Her favorite pastime is reading a good book in a hot bubble bath with scented candles, red wine and chocolate-covered strawberries. http://www.allisonbrennan.com
Alyssa Hurzeler
While Alyssa’s reading preferences have changed over the years, she remains fascinated with the written word. She works full-time as a writer and editor. In 2004, she started By the Book: Alyssa’s Book Blog to talk about reading. When she’s not reading or working, she enjoys scrapbooking, watching DVDs, and writing romances under a pen name. http://www.alyssasbookblog.com
Angela Benedetti
Angela Benedetti has been writing since she was a kid. Her romance addiction started when her mom began loaning her historicals when she was twelve — first Rogue’s Mistress by Constance Gluyas, followed shortly by Johanna Lindsey’s Captive Bride. She was hooked, and both were favorites for many years. She wandered across gay romance shortly thereafter and discovered that two gorgeous guys are much better than one. Most of her writing, as well as her reading these days is focused on the guys, although she still has a few favorite het writers, particularly Jo Beverley. http://angiesdesk.blogspot.com/
Angela T
Angela Tate came to romance late, but like all late-bloomers, she can be even more enthusiastic about the genre than long-time readers. After spending a few years reading alone and wondering if more romance readers like herself existed, she is delighted to discover a bevy of intelligent, fascinating people with the same passion and dedication to the genre. Her “guilty pleasures†include the works of Catherine Coulter and those clogs-and-shawls British tragedies, and when not blogging, she can be found discovering new places to vacation and cooking up a storm. http://www.saveblackromance.com
Barbara Caridad Ferrer
Barbara Caridad Ferrer is a first generation, bilingual Cuban-American, raised in Miami, which she realizes makes her a walking cliché but also means she speaks Spanish at least well enough to regularly employ the… colorful expressions. Her young adult debut, Adiós to My Old Life (MTV Books/2006), was chosen as a double finalist in RWA’s RITA awards. Barb can be found on the web at: http://barbaraferrer.com/ or http://www.caridadferrer.com
Barbara Samuel
A Colorado native, Barbara Samuel (aka Ruth Wind) is a novelist with more than 30 books and novellas to her credit, both mainstream and romance. She has won nearly every award in the industry, including five RITAs, two Colorado Book Awards, and a Best Book of the Year mention from Library Journal. Her current novels include LADY LUCK’S MAP OF VEGAS and MADAME MIRABOU’S SCHOOL OF LOVE. She blogs about books, food, and travel at awriterafoot.com. http://awriterafoot.typepad.com/
Brenda Coulter
Brenda Coulter’s debut novel, Finding Hope, won both a HOLT Medallion and a Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award. But after selling that manuscript, the first she ever completed, she suffered three subsequent rejections before figuring out what she had done right the first time. Her second book, A Family Forever, was a finalist for a Romance Writers of America RITA award in 2007. Brenda dishes on writing, life, and the writing life at “No rules. Just write.” which is on the Internet Writing Journal’s list of Best Author Blogs. (http://brendacoulter.blogspot.com)
Croco Designs
Behind CrocoDesigns is one woman who loves crocodiles as much as her design work. She holds a degree in veterinary medicine and has worked in all kind of jobs related to publishing and book promoting. Design was a hobby that’s now a full-time job and she enjoys every minute of it. So if you can’t find her reading the latest romance novel, she’ll be sitting in front of her computer working on the next project, but always it’s all about the books. (http://www.crocodesigns.com)
Daniela L.
Daniela’s love for books began as a child in her native San Francisco, where she lived a block away from her local library. The love (some call it OBSESSION) followed her to college where she studied English and History and soon developed a passion for Britain’s Victorian and Regency periods. She loves Jane Austen and considers Austen’s lesser known PERSUASION one of the greatest romances of all time. Daniela reads any chance she gets; her favorite romance authors are Lisa Kleypas (she claims to be her #1 fan), Mary Balogh, Loretta Chase, Julie Anne Long and Candace Hern.
www.wheresmyhero.blogspot.com
Deb Werksman
Deb Werksman has been an acquiring editor and editorial manager for Sourcebooks for the past eleven years, before which she had her own publishing company. She is the country’s foremost editor of Jane Austen sequels, and acquires single title romance in all subgenres, as well as historical and women’s fiction. Sourcebooks is the country’s largest woman-owned independent publishing house, and we’re known for our sales and marketing, as well as our focus on building authors’ careers. http://www.sourcebooks.com.
Dee Tenorio
Dee Tenorio is an author of seven novels, mother of three and a wife for thirteen years–which means her ovaries do overtime doing laundry, finding keys and lost socks and diapers that have mysteriously disappeared to the sound of wild toddler giggles. Since she’s written stories from the time she was little, she thought it was a pretty good idea to get into writing romance–sensual, romantic and sometimes funny. After all, she’s currently living her own happily ever after. Dee can be found most days on her blog, http://www.deetenorio.com.
Deeanne Gist
As a journalist and member of the press, Deeanne Gist has written for national publications such as People, Parents, Parenting, Family Fun, Houston Chronicle and Orlando Sentinel. She also has a parenting line of products called I Did It!® Productions. Her debut novel, A Bride Most Begrudging, is a best selling “edgy inspirational” with Bethany House Publishers. Gist lives in Texas with her husband of twenty-two years, her four teenagers and two dogs. http://www.deeannegist.com
Diana Peterfreund
Diana Peterfreund has been a costume designer, a cover model, and a food critic. She graduated from Yale University in 2001 with dual degrees in Literature and Geology, which her folks claimed would only come in handy if she wrote books about rocks. Now, this Florida girl lives in Washington D.C., where she is slowly becoming accustomed to the alien concepts of “hills” and “winter.” Her first novel, SECRET SOCIETY GIRL, will be released in July 2006 by Bantam Dell. http://www.dianapeterfreund.blogspot.com/
Emmanuelle Alspaugh
Emmanuelle Alspaugh joined Judith Ehrlich Literary in August 2008. Previously she was an agent at Wendy Sherman Associates and an editor at Fodor’s, the travel division of Random House. She represents romance, women¹s fiction, and historical fiction, as well as select nonfiction categories. She’s is actively seeking paranormal and historical romance, and urban fantasy. Emmanuelle was born in France and grew up in Eugene, Oregon, before settling in New York City to work in publishing. She enjoys developing long-term relationships with her clients, helping them to build strong and lasting literary careers. http://www.judithehrlichliterary.com
Eric Selinger
Eric Selinger is Associate Professor of English at DePaul University, where he teaches courses on poetry and popular romance fiction. Recipient of the 2006-7 Competitive Research Grant from the RWA, he is the founder and moderator of RomanceScholar, a listserv for the academic study of romance, of Teach Me Tonight, a collaborative blog on the same topic, and of “Resources for Teaching Popular Romance Fiction,” a page of syllabi, lesson plans, and other course materials.
http://teachmetonight.blogspot.com
Jana J. Hanson
Jana J. Hanson has been a book geek since the age of 3 when she memorized her favorite ABC book, but still made her mother read it to her every night. Her love of reading propelled her to major in English, where she was introduced to some of her now favorite writers. When Jana isn’t reading, she’s a wife, mother and e-publishing editor.
http://janajhanson.blogspot.com/
Jennifer Estep
By night, Jennifer Estep is an author, prowling the streets of her imagination in search of her next fantasy idea. Jennifer writes the Elemental Assassin urban fantasy series. The books focus on Gin Blanco, an assassin codenamed the Spider who can control the elements of Ice and Stone. The first book in the series, Spider’s Bite, will be released on Jan. 26, 2010 by Pocket Books. Web of Lies, the second book in the series, will be released in June 2010, with Venom, the third book, to follow in October 2010. Jennifer is also the author of the Bigtime paranormal romance series for Berkley. The Bigtime books feature sexy superheroes, evil ubervillains, and smart, sassy gals looking for love. http://www.jenniferestep.com
Jordan Summers
I’d like to say I’m the life of the party, a laugh a minute kind of gal, and outrageously cool, BUT that would be a slight fabrication. I’m actually a thirty-something, ex-flight attendant with a penchant for huge bookstores and big dumb action movies. I prefer quiet dinners with friends over maddening crowds. Happily married to my very own Highlander, we split our time between two continents. You can reach Jordan at her website: http://www.jordansummers.com
Julie Cohen
Julie writes sexy, funny romantic fiction for Headline’s Little Black Dress imprint and for Mills & Boon Modern Heat/Harlequin Presents. She lives in England, is married to a rock god, and has a really cute kid who is obsessed with socks. http://www.julie-cohen.com
Kara Lennox
Kara Lennox, a.k.a. Karen Leabo, is the author of nearly 50 category romances. She’s written for many Harlequin and Silhouette lines, Bantam Loveswept, and BooksForABuck. Currently she writes for Harlequin American Romance, Harlequin Intrigue and Silhouette Desire. She’s won an RT Reviewer’s Choice and has been a finalist in the Rita, Readers’ Choice and Holt Medallion. She tells all in her blog, including how many pages she wrote that day, what she eats and how far she walks. http://www.karalennox.com/
Kassia Krozser
Kassia Krozser wrote her first book at age seven, believing the path to publication was easy. Ha! Her mother guards this early masterpiece with her life. Or until someone offers money. Mom is cheap. Kassia serves as principal voice (balanced by more reasonable guests) of Booksquare. In her spare time, she wonders what she’d do if she had spare time. Other character flaws include overindulgence of Chinese noodles, overindulgence of books, and overindulgence of sleep.
http://www.booksquare.com
Kate
Kate Smith is the group pseudonym for the original founders and behind the scenes team that runs RTB. http://www.romancingtheblog.com/blog/about-the-kates/
Katie Dunneback
Katie Dunneback should have known she was going to succumb to the family heritage (she’s a third-generation librarian) when she ran an underground romance library out of her dorm room all four years she was in college. Her vocal advocacy for adult popular materials, especially romance, while in grad school led to her publishing book chapters on serving the romance reader and romance reader’s advisory. She served on the inaugural committee of the Reading List Council, the American Library Association’s award for the best in genre fiction. She also writes fiction under a pseudonym using the initials K.M. You can frequently find her on Twitter as younglibrarian. http://twitter.com/younglibrarian
Kimber Chin
Kimber specializes in new business development, launching new products, new systems and evaluating mergers and acquisitions. Her bookshelf contains two genres, business and romance. Why romance? Kimber spends her days fighting fires, taking care of problems that may or may not have solutions. She prefers to unwind reading novels with guaranteed happy endings and which genre provides more happy endings than romance? None. http://www.businessromance.com/
Larissa Ione
Larissa Ione is the author of sexy contemporary and paranormal romances. Published with Red Sage and Warner under her own name, she is also one half of the writing team of Sydney Croft, whose debut novel, Riding The Storm, will be published by Bantam Dell in 2007. Larissa currently resides in Virginia with her Coast Guard husband, nine-year-old son, and two mice, none of whom are safe from being the subject of blog posts. http://www.larissaione.com
Laurie Damron
Legal assistant by day, reader and reviewer by night; wife and mother day and night. Laurie Damron has always been an avid reader, from Peanuts in grade school, to sweet Harlequins after a family friend gave her a grocery sack full. After reading The Flame and the Flower at 18, the sweet Harlequins were forgotten and she has devoured countless numbers of romances since. Laurie currently reviews for Romance Junkies and finds posting those reviews and her own independent reviews, together with personal tidbits about family, friends, and important causes to her blog, to be extremely satisfying. http://lauries-laudanum.blogspot.com/
Lori Devoti
Lori is pretty new to the whole blog thing, but she can’t resist throwing her opinion out for the world to read–or ignore as may be the case. She’s also new to the pubbed author gig (Love is All Around, Zebra, May 2005), but again it doesn’t stop her from voicing her thoughts. As a columnist she hopes to share oh so sage advice on writing, getting published, and life as a romance author. http://www.loridevoti.com
MG Braden
Michelle has been a voracious reader since she became hooked on Nancy Drew mysteries as a young girl. Mysteries have always been her favourite and if you add a good romance in with the mix, all the better. Michelle reviews, under another name, for a number of sites, including the Romance Divas. While an aspiring author, with her first story coming out in April 2007, Michelle is first, and always, a reader who reads at least three books a week. http://www.mgbraden.com
Malle Vallik
Malle Vallik is the Director of Digital Content & Interactivity for Harlequin Enterprises Ltd. She loves books and has had a varied publishing career in editorial, sales and online content and community. Malle is responsible for eBooks, downloadable audio and mobile content along with expanding and strengthening Harlequin’s relationships with its readers. Romance is her favorite genre and she has published 7 novels, most for Harlequin Temptation under the name Molly Liholm. You can find me on twitter.com/mallevallik
Misa Ramirez
Misa Ramirez is the author of the Lola, P.I. series: Living the Vida Lola (Winter ’09) and Dead Girl Walking (2010) from St. Martin’s Press. When she’s not teaching high school or performing CEO and CFO duties for La Familia Ramirez, this blonde-haired, green-eyed, proud to be Latina-by-Marriage girl loves following Lola on her many adventures. Whether it’s contemplating belly button piercings or visiting nudist resorts, she’s always up for the challenge. Misa has also written several romantic suspense novels, is published in Woman’s World Magazine and Romance Writers Report, and has a children’s book published. http://www.misaramirez.com/.
Patricia Woodside
Patricia Woodside writes inspirational and sweet multicultural romances. She has published short stories in national magazines. Her first e-book, “Love and Kwanzaa†was published in 2006 by The Wild Rose Press. She immortalized her own love story in the inspirational anthology, “How I Met My Sweetheart†(Amani Publishing, February 2007). Patricia pens book reviews for SORMAG and FreshFiction.com. She is currently working on her first novel, and blogging about her writing journey at http://readinnwritin.blogspot.com.
Robin
I guess the first thing I should say about myself is that I hate writing these things. I’m not sure if I’m an average Romance reader, but I am relatively new to the genre, so I’m trying to make up for a lot of time lost, hoarding older and newly published books alike. My educational background is in literature, and now law, and I read everything from literary fiction to philosophy to poetry. Historical Romance was my first love within the genre, but I’m fickle and easily seduced by the promise of a good read. I approach every book with the same hope: that I will be filled from the inside out with something awesome that I didn’t know, didn’t think about, or didn’t feel until that moment. I read Romance for the same reasons. http://www.accessromance.com/gab/
Sarah S. G. Frantz
Sarah S. G. Frantz is an assistant professor of literature at Fayetteville State University, NC, and a contributor to “Teach Me Tonight: Musings on Romance Fiction from an Academic Perspective.†Her official specialty is Romantic-era British women novelists, especially Jane Austen, but she not-so-secretly loves to subject modern mass-market romances to her literary criticism as well. But really, if you think about it, Romantic-era British women novelists were the mass-market romance writers of their day, so it’s really the same thing! Her true obsession is examining how female authors write their male characters, no matter the century. And she is, of course, also a frustrated romance author herself. http://teachmetonight.blogspot.com
Sarah Tanner
I’m a self-confessed bookaholic with a particular penchant for romance fiction. Although I read widely in several genres, my first love is romance. When I want to read a good book which will provide me with a few hours of pure escapism and put a smile on my face, what’s better than a romance novel? When not reading, writing, blogging and reviewing, I have a real life. This involves lots of coffee, chocolate, one husband and two small, cute-but-smelly people. http://www.monkeybearreviews.com/
Shannon Stacey
Shannon Stacey’s romances range from traditional to erotic, and fall in the subgenres of contemporary, romantic comedy, action-adventure, paranormal and historical western. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband, two sons, two cats and one very confused muse.
http://shannonstacey.com/
Shayera
I’ve been a reader of romance novels as long as I can remember. And I’m constitutionally conditioned to be a librarian. Even as a small child my books were organized and sorted and categorized. I flirted with the dark side for a while, studying PoliSci in college but soon came back to the library fold. I currently manage a branch of the Los Angeles Public Library system. I’m definitely a book pusher, with no plans to stop. I read across pretty much every genre. My favorites are contemporaries and historicals, with a big helping of paranormal and even series occasionally.
http://shayera.blogspot.com/
Shirley Jump
Shirley Jump spends her days writing romantic comedies with sweet attitude for Kensington Books (The Devil Served Tortellini, March 2005) and for Silhouette Romance (Her Frog Prince, December 2004; Kissed By Cat, February 2005) to feed her shoe addiction and avoid housework. A wife and mother of two, her real life provides enough humor to fill more books than she can write, one of which won the Bookseller’s Best Award. http://www.shirleyjump.com
Stephanie Tyler
Stephanie Tyler writes military romance. She has long since given up trying to control her characters, especially the Navy SEAL alpha males, and her first book will be available in April 2007 from Harlequin Blaze. She also writes Single Title Military Romance for Bantam Dell , the first of which will be published in 2009. And, because she loves being busy, she also writes paranormal romance with a military twist for Bantam Dell with co-author Larissa Ione under the pen-name Sydney Croft . She lives in New York with her husband, her daughter and her blog. http://www.stephanietyler.com
Sylvia Day
Sylvia Day is the national bestselling author of over a dozen novels. Presently writing for Kensington, Penguin, HarperCollins, and Tor-Forge, she is a wife, mother of two, entrepreneur, Army veteran, Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award winner, EPPIE winner, National Readers’ Choice winner, multiple RITA® finalist, and admitted chocoholic and caffeine addict. http://www.sylviaday.com
Wendy Crutcher
Wendy’s first professional library job involved purchasing adult fiction for a rural Michigan library system. When she realized that she had no idea who Nora Roberts was, she knew she needed serious help. In the name of educating herself, she started reading romance and hasn’t come up for air yet. A former reviewer for The Romance Reader, Wendy now works in the collection development department for a large California library system and counts historical westerns, category romance and erotica as her favorite sub genres. http://wendythesuperlibrarian.blogspot.com/
