Shannon Drake

Born Heather Graham on March 15, 1953 in Dade County, Florida, USA, where she grew up. She married Dennis Pozzessere shortly after her high school graduation. After high school she went on and earned a degree in theater arts from the University of South Florida. She spent several years after that working in dinner theater, singing backup vocals, and bartending. After the birth of her third child, Pozzessere decided she couldn't afford to go to work anymore. She chose to stay at home, and, to fill her time, began to write horror stories and romances. After two years, in 1982, she sold her first novel, When Next We Love.

In the years since then, Pozzessere has written over one hundred novels and novellas. These novels run the gamut of the romance genre, from historical fiction to category, from romantic suspense to time travel, and from vampire fiction to Christmas stories. She has been the launch author for Dell's Ecstasy Supreme line, Silhouette's Shadows line, and for Harlequin's mainstream brand, Mira Books. Her books have been published in twenty languages. Romance Writers of America presented her with the 2003 Lifetime Achievement Award. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, and Novelists Inc.

Pozzessere is a founder of the Florida chapter of the Romance Writers of America, and since 1999 has hosted the annual Romantic Times Vampire Ball for charity. In 2006, she hosted the first Writers for New Orleans on Labor Day, with workshops and a dinner theater event to benefit the city and the libraries. Labor Day of 2007 made it an annual event.

Pozzessere is a certified scuba diver. She and her husband live in Florida. They have five children

Lisa Kleypas

Kleypas has always loved to read, especially within the romance genre. She began writing her own romance novels during her summer breaks from studying political science at Wellesley College, Her parents agreed to support her for a few months after her graduation so that she could finish her latest manuscript. Approximately two months later, at age 21, Kleypas sold her first novel.

At approximately the same time, the 5'2" Kleypas was named Miss Massachusetts. During her competition at the Miss America pageant, Kleypas sang a song she had written, earning her a "talented nonfinalist" award.

Kleypas has been a full-time romance writer since selling that first book. Her novels have ranked high on major best-seller lists, sold millions of copies around the globe and have been translated into fourteen different languages.

In October 1998, Kleypas's Texas home flooded within a matter of hours after heavy rains inundated their town. She and her family lost everything except the clothes they were wearing and her purse. Within days,her colleagues at Avon sent boxes of clothes and books to help the family recover. For Kleypas, though, the defining moment was the after the flood, when she and her mother (whose home had also flooded), made a quick trip to the store to purchase toothbrushes, clean clothes, and other necessities. Separately, each of them had also chosen a romance novel, a necessity to them in helping them escape the stress they were currently under. To Kleypas, this realization validated her decision to write romance novels instead of more literary works.

Though primarily known for her historical romance novels, Kleypas made an announcement in early 2006 concerning her momentary departure from historical romances to delve into the contemporary romance genre. She does plan to write historical romances again in the future.

Lisa lives in Washington with her husband, Gregory, and their two children.

Jayne Ann Krentz

Jayne Ann Castle was born March 28, 1948, in Cobb, California, USA. Her mother, Alberta Castle, raised her and her two brothers, Stephen and James in Borrego Springs during her first 10 years.

She earned a B.A in History at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1970.Fearful that she would be unable to find a job using her degree, she elected to obtain a Masters degree in Library Science from San Jose State University. Immediately after graduation she married Frank Krentz, an engineer, whom she had met at San Jose State. The couple moved to the Virgin Islands, where Krentz worked for a year as an elementary school librarian, a time she refers to as "an unmitigated career disaster." Realizing that she enjoyed being a librarian but not the aspects of teaching that working in an elementary school required, Krentz moved into the higher levels of academia, including a stint in the Duke University library system. Krentz and her husband later moved to Seattle, Washington.

Krentz has been generous in sharing her wealth with libraries. She established the Castle Humanities Fund at UCSC's University Library to allow the library to purchase additional books and has given money to 15 Seattle-area elementary schools to enhance their library budgets. She is also a member of the Advisory Board for the Writers Programs at the University of Washington extension program.

Krentz is famous for her work ethic, beginning her writing by 7 am six days a week. She is fond of vegetarian cooking.


While working at Duke, Krentz began writing stories her way, combining elements of romance novels with paranormal twists. For six years she wrote and mailed proposals for new novels, consistently receiving rejection letters. She claims to have tried to stop writing several times during that period, but that it became a "compulsion."During this time she and her family moved to Seattle, Washington to further her husband's aerospace career.

Krentz continued writing, and, in 1979, she sold her first novel, Gentle Pirate.That novel and several that followed were published within various category romance lines, as that was the only method in which contemporary romance was published. As more publishers began to release single-title contemporary romances, Krentz shifted into writing only single-title novels.

Her first novels were released under her birth name, Jayne Castle. An ill-informed Krentz signed a contract allowing one of her publishers to own the name, and, after leaving that publisher, Krentz was unable to use that name on new works for ten years. This led to the creation of several pseudonyms, including Jayne Taylor, Jayne Bentley, Stephanie James and Amanda Glass.
Uneasy Alliance as Jayne Ann Krentz, 1984

Although by the mid-1980s she had begun using only her married name, Jayne Ann Krentz, for all of her contemporary romance novels. Her 1986 novel, Sweet Starfire was the first true futuristic romance, a subgenre that combined elements of romance novels and science fiction. The novel was a "classic road trip romance" which just happened to be set in a separate galaxy. In 1987 she published a second futuristic romance, Crystal Flame, which again allowed for a "traditional romance plot unfold[ing] in an extraordinary world."
Seduction as Amanda Quick, 1990/02

The success of these books encouraged Krentz to try to write a real historical romance with a humorous twist, which she released under the pseudonym Amanda Quick.

Krentz further expanded the boundaries of the romance genre in 1996, when she began writing paranormal futuristic novels of romantic suspense. Released under her maiden name, Jayne Castle, these novels are set far in the future in a world where everyone has a psychic talent and respectable people use marriage agencies instead of choosing their own mates. As is customary in her writing, in each case the protagonists have a mystery to solve or a villain to defeat.

All of her novels, regardless of their setting, are known for containing suspense, romance, and humor, and many also dwell on family relationships. Psychic themes also appear throughout Krentz's work. In 2006 she began a new series, called The Arcane Society, which will include books written under both the Jayne Ann Krentz and Amanda Quick names. The books tells the stories of members of the Arcane Society for the psychically gifted, and each hero and heroine has his or her own psychic power. The books will feature a mystery for the protagonists to solve while they are learning to deal with their psychic abilities. The heroes of her novels are always alpha males who are as strong and determined as her heroines.


Over 122 of her novels (all of which are romances) have been published, with 32 of them placing on the New York Times Bestseller List. In total, there are over 23 million copies of her books in print. Krentz has been nominated 22 times for Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Awards, winning in 2004 for Falling Awake and in 1995 for Trust Me. She has also received a Romantic Times Career Achievement Award.

An outspoken advocate of the merits of romantic fiction, Krentz maintains that "[p]opular fiction encapsulates and reinforces many of our most fundamental cultural values. Romance is among the most enduring because it addresses the values of family and human emotional bonds." To help educate the public about the genre she became the editor of and a contributor to Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance, a non-fiction essay collection that won the prestigious Susan Koppelman Award for Feminist Studies.Krentz was the inspiration for, and first recipient of, the Romantic Times Jane Austen Award, created to "honor those in the romance community who have significantly impacted our genre."

Jayne Ann Krentz's novel The Waiting Game was adapted for the Harlequin Romance Series teleplay in 1998. The movie starred Chris Potter with Paula Abdul in the female supporting role, directed by Vic Sarin.

Nicole Jordan

Nicole Jordan was born in Oklahoma. Her father was in the US Army, so the family moved frequently, with Jordan actually graduating from high school in Germany. She credits her mother with instilling her love of romance novels. Her mother began reading aloud to her from Pride and Prejudice and The Scarlet Pimpernel when Jordan was ten years old. Before long, she was reading Victoria Holt and Mary Stewart romances.

Jordan earned a degree in civil engineering from Georgia Tech. She then spent eight years working as a manufacturing manager for Proctor and Gamble making disposable diapers and toilet tissue. After reading the novel Tears of Gold by Laurie McBain, Jordan began dreaming of writing her own stories. After attending a goal-setting workshop with the theme "Do it now -- don't wait until you're too old to explore your dreams," Jordan went home and began writing one of her ideas down in long-hand. After four years of part-time writing and editing and many rejections, Zebra books purchased this first story in 1985.

Jordan and her husband moved from Atlanta to Utah. She owns a horse, Irish Outlaw, which is an Irish Thoroughbred. Jordan often competes with him in shows. Jordan has no children.

Susan Krinard

Susan Krinard is an author of paranormal romance, science fiction, and fantasy.

Susan received a BFA in Illustration from the California College of Arts and Crafts. She became inspired to become an author when a close friend of hers read a romantic "Beauty and the Beast"-like excerpt she'd written and suggested she try her hand at romance novels. Prince of Wolves, her first romance novel, sold within a year as part of a three book contract. Since then she has been published by HQN, Luna Books, Bantam Books, and Berkley Books.

Susan's works often build on each other. For example, the sister of the male protagonist in her werewolf romance, "Touch Of A Wolf" is the central character in a later novel, "Once A Wolf". Her stories portray paranormal beings, including vampires, werewolves, and extraterrestrials, interacting with and becoming the love interest of human characters.

Susan is originally from the Bay area, lived in Toronto in the 1980s, and now lives in New Mexico with her husband, a dog, and two cats.

Teresa Medeiros

Teresa Medeiros (born 1962) is a United States award-winning romance novelist with more than eight million books in print. She wrote her first novel at 21 and has since gone on to publish 16 books. Before becoming a well-known author, she was a nurse. According to her official biography, she lives in Kentucky with her husband and neurotic cat.

To date all of her books have all been on the New York Times Bestsellers list. She is a two-time PRISM winner, and two-time recipient of the Waldenbooks Award for bestselling fiction. Additionally she is a charter member of the Romance Writers of America Honor Roll. She is also a member of Kentucky Romance Writers and Novelists, Inc.

Dawn Atkins

Dawn Atkins has been writing since childhood. In the early 1980s she sold the first of her work, several romance short stories which were published by True Love magazine. She then wrote her first romance novel, which was rejected by publishers. For the next 13 years, Atkins did not write. She filled her time teaching second and third graders. Eventually she began rewriting her first novel, which was rejected by several agents in its new form. Atkins kept writing, and her third completed manuscript was published by Kensington Books' Precious Gems line of contemporary category romances. Getting Zack Back was published in July 1998 under the name Daphne Atkeson. Her second novel, Baby Makes Three, was released eighteen months later. Many of her later books have been published by various Harlequin category romance lines, including Temptation and Blaze.

Atkins has been twice nominated for Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Awards, for Going to Extremes and A Perfect Life.

Atkins maintains a full-time job as a writer. She and her husband, David, have one son.

Diana Palmer

Born Susan Spaeth on December 11, 1946, in Cuthbert, Georgia, United States. She grew up reading Zane Grey and fell in love with cowboys. She is a former newspaper reporter, with sixteen years experience on both daily and weekly newspapers. She resides in Georgia, where she began to write novels seriously. Kyle has been married to James Kyle since 1972, with whom she has one son, Blayne Kyle.

Kyle went back to college at the age of forty-five. She was inspired by her husband who quit his job to pursue his diploma in computer programming. She graduated summa cum laude from Piedmont College, Demorest, Georgia, in 1995 with a major in history and a double minor in archaeology and Spanish. She was named to two honor societies (the Torch Club and Alpha Chi), and was named to the National Dean's List. In addition to her writing projects, she is currently working on her master's degree in history at California State University where she plans on specializing in Native American studies.

She is a member of the Native American Rights Fund, the American Museum of Natural History, the National Cattlemen's Association, the Archaeological Institute of Amenca, the Planetary Society, The Georgia Conservancy, the Georgia Sheriff's Association, and numerous conservation and charitable organizations. Her hobbies include gardening, archaeology, anthropology, iguanas, astronomy and music.


She began selling romance novels in 1979 to MacFadden Romance under the pseudonym Diana Palmer. In 1980, she wrote The Morcai Battalion, a science fiction novel as Susan S. Kyle, continued under the pseudonym Diana Palmer 28 years later. From 1982 to 1990, she wrote by Dell Publishing seven novels under the pseudonym Diana Blayne (her son's name). In 1984, she sold a novel by Silhouette Books under the pseudonym Katy Currie. She also used her married name, Susan Kyle, from 1988 to 1995 to sell seven romance novels to Warner Books.

Now, she only used her most popular pseudonym Diana Palmer and writes for three New York publishing houses: Mira Books (mainstream romances), Silhouette Books (contemporary series romances), and Fawcett Books (historical romances). She has over 150 books in print, more of them translated and published around the world.

Her novel Diamond Girl was made into a movie, released in 1998, for television.


Her awards include seven Waldenbooks national sales awards, four B. Dalton national sales awards, two Bookrak national sales awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award for series storytelling from Romantic Times, several Affaire de Coeur awards, and two regional Romance Writers of America awards. In 1998, a Japanese Harlequin reader poll gave her Silhouette Desire novel, The Patient Nurse, its favorite book of the year award. She is listed in numerous publications, including Contemporary Authors by Gale Research, Inc., Twentieth Century Romance and Historical Writers by St. James Press, The Writers Directory by St. James Press, the International Who's Who of Authors and Writers by Meirose Press, Ltd., and Love's Leading Ladies by Kathryn Falk. She has also been awarded the Romantic Times 1992-1993 Career Achievement Award Winner for series storyteller of the year. She has also been invited to speak at Romance conventions; Palmer presented a session topic, Moving from Series Romance to Mainstream Romance, at the 9th annual Harriet Austin Writers Conference in 2002.