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I was born in California, too many years ago to mention, and lived there most of my life, although I have lived in: Idaho, Nevada, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and North Carolina. Now Las Vegas, Nevada is my place of residence. And I love it!
As a child, from Arkansas-born-and-bred parents and grandparents, I was interested in art, reading, and writing ... if I wasn't filling up rolls of white shelf paper with drawings of people I copied from magazines or writing plays to perform in our lop-sided wooden garage with a dirt floor on the alley behind our house, I was reading comic books, Hit Parade or other magazines. AND mustn't forget romance magazines. I read a lot of those. Anybody remember romance mags?
In my pre-teen years my paternal grandfather owned a grocery store in a 300-family community in Ventura County where we lived, and I was in charge of stocking the new comic books and magazines as they arrived. So, needless to say, dozens of publications ended up in the bedroom I shared with my sister Mary. Sister Martha was just a baby then. Then as a teenager, my father managed a five & dime in the San Joaquin Valley, and again I was in charge of and read the comic books and magazines to my heart's content. Yes, as a teenager, I still read comic books. All I could get my hands on. They were my world. Literary books were for school assignments, we didn't have books in our home, only Bibles . . . and comic books.
Many years later after a few marriages and 4 children, I returned to my fascination of words on a page, this time absorbed with novels and the classics I was supposed to have read in school, but didn't, and suddenly became overwhelmed with a passion to write.
I began typing my first stage play, this was before I had a computer. I'd done my homework, taken classes whenever and whereever, completed a Television & Screenwriting program at UCLA, had become involved with theatre productions in L.A. and was learning the ropes somewhat. So over the next several years I was counted among the thousands of struggling writers submitting stageplays and screenplays to so-called "agents" and "producers." All was not a loss, however, some of my stageplays have been produced at community level, of which I'm grateful - and I still write them.
But then I found my niche ...
My first novel "MIDNIGHT AT TRAFALGAR" was released in September 2005. That was one of the most thrilling moments I have ever experienced, having written a novel.
In May 2006 I went to Paris to do research to write my second novel "MIDNIGHT AT THE EIFFEL." Although I'd been to Paris several times, I needed to hang out in Montmartre a bit more for this book, and also visit the Louvre again for pertinent details.
My third novel in the "Midnight" series is set in Belgium and is called "MIDNIGHT IN BRUSSELS." A preview of the novel, the beginning of it, is written as a short story in my first short story collection "Love Has A Price Tag". The short story is called "Amanda's Dream." But of course the novel goes way beyond the short ... and of course I spent yet another New Year's Eve in Brussels to research the background for the novel. The fourth novel in the series is MIDNIGHT IN MOSCOW ... and the fifth is MIDNIGHT IN MALIBU ... sixth is MIDNIGHT IN VEGAS .
I'm planning twelve novels in the "Midnight" series. All featuring New Year's Eve celebrations around the world, one major city in each novel, and including the continuing story of Rachel O'Neill & her circle of friends.
One of my favorite countries is England, however, I go there quite often, have lived there, and always enjoy meeting up with old friends, making new ones, and promoting my novels which are partially set in England, for that is where my fictional character Rachel O'Neill lives.
Yes, I do love traveling, have been to most of western and eastern Europe, Russia, the British Isles, Mexico, Canada and many of the States as well as Caribbean cities.
My novella THE CHRISTMAS DIARY and collections of short stories and plays: LOVE HAS A PRICE TAG, BITS & PIECES OF ME, MY DRAMEDY and SHOE'S ON THE OTHER FOOT are available ... I do hope you read those as well as my novels.
So with six novels, a novella, and several books of short stories and plays under my belt, I'm happy as a lark. Now on to the next project ... a memoir EIGHT HUSBANDS & OTHER LOVERS. Watch for this one!
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