Imagine if you will a young impressionable teenage girl, running home from school to watch the dark soap opera, “Dark Shadows”. Imagine also, same girl a little older, staying up—or trying to—to watch the old B&W classic horror flicks—her favorite, of course, is Dracula.
That little girl was me. I had a crush on Dracula, but never liked that he was hunted down and killed. I always thought he should have the woman he loved, after all, he went to so much trouble in getting her. If I had written the play, it would have gone 180 degrees the other way. I spent an inordinate amount of time digging up anything on vampires I could throughout high school and college—which probably earned me the Weirdo Award - but I didn't care.
Before Anne Rice, or Charlaine Harris, vampire fiction was under the overall Horror banner. I read Stephen King, Dean Koontz and James Hubert. There was no such thing as “paranormal romance”, or “urban fantasy”. Not very long ago, certain authors (like those above and many more—women, all), were able to dash away the male-driven idea of making a vampire so... unwanted. Only a woman would put a vampire in bed with a woman. And it was about time. But my writing is more urban fantasy style, even though I manage to marry romance, horror, adventure, and mystery into my books.
I took a creative writing course in high school (a very long time ago), and was so excited I'd found my true calling and told my teacher I wanted to become an author. She told me to pick a different vocation because my spelling was horrible and my grammar not much better.
I didn't follow her advice. So glad I was determined to prove her wrong.
I got more out of the same course in college—the teacher didn't pick at such things. He encouraged me/us, and I was first published in ByLine Magazine. But I wanted to write long fiction. In the early years, I must have written a million pages (not at all good), in longhand, and typed—practicing to become a writer. I went to a writer's conference or two, read books and magazines on how to write. I've published poems, short stories and articles for various publications. I first self-published “Spell of the Black Unicorn” in 2008. My first Sabrina Strong book was taken by another publisher, who went on to publish the first three books in the series. I now write for Creativia, and as of 2016, have five in the series published.
I love to create worlds you can taste, smell and feel with main characters you can identify with, fall in love with, lust for, and villains you may love to hate. My vampires are never cardboard baddies. They've all got their own personalities, needs, hates, and
idiosyncrasies. I refused to fall into the pre-teen vampire fiction, and instead delve into the gritty, sometimes violent, dark and sexual world of vampires. I wasn't about to castrate a vampire for his lust for blood. That's the basic appeal a male vampire has for women—those very significant psychological reasons for adoring Dracula et al. And I've added the need for sex to be just as strong, thus upping the strong tie between the two needs.
I'm an outdoors person and self-made naturalist, and love to go on road vacations with my husband. A chronic rule breaker, I chose to write fantasy/urban fantasy, because I wanted to do whatever I desired with my characters. When I write darker fiction/horror, my work is more similar to Hitchcock and Rod Sterling, with surprise endings. When I go into the longer works I tend to be more of a combination of Josh Whedon, Charlaine Harris and Kim Harrison.
My hobbies include crocheting, bird watching, nature watching/hiking. I live on a re-planted prairie/wetlands, which my husband of 30 years is manager of. I also dabble in crafts of some sort. I've nearly finished the 8th book of the Sabrina Strong series. Currently I'm working on a murder mystery (my first without vampires or anything odd), and “Dhampire Legacy”, which I'd begun several years ago. These I hope to have finished at the end of the summer, along with the #6 Sabrina Strong book.
