Rhode
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Romance Writers
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Our Published Authors
Award-winning author, Annette Blair, is the Development Director and Journalism Advisor at a Rhode Island secondary school. Happily married for 32 years, Annette considers romance a celebration of life. This and her fascination for the nineteenth century lends itself perfectly to her chosen genre, Historical Romance. Annette immerses herself so deeply in her research, she has twice visited the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, England, the icon of Regency opulence. She has even learned to drive an Amish buggy, her husband an intrepid passenger in the back seat. Now that's a hero! Besides writing, Annette loves speaking to writers' groups and hearing from her readers.
Liz Boardman
While deciding what she wanted to do when she grew up, Liz Boardman tried out a variety of jobs, including selling bar code labels, convincing foreigners to ship brake parts just-in-time and acting dead while being sprayed with tadpole remains during a recreation of the Battle of Alamance. Eventually, she took the advice of her first grade teacher, who told her (in 1971) that she should be a writer when she grew up. Since 1994, she’s done just that, working as a freelance writer for magazines and writing romantic comedy novels. AMELIA’S MELTDOWN was a 1998 Golden Heart finalist and won the 1997 Love and Laughter contest.
Born Liz Edwards in an accidental home birth in Rock Island, Illinois (her mom didn't realize she was in labor--when it's the 5th time you've done it, that happens) many people still think of her as "one of the Edwards' twins." She graduated from Alleman High School in 1983, then went on to receive a seemingly useless degree in Acting/Directing from UNC-Greensboro. In reality, the degree has proven essential to the success of her writing career--giving fresh hope to parents who are paying for silly college degrees. Today, she and her family live in southern Rhode Island.
A Rhode Island native, Gail Eastwood spent almost twenty years writing as a journalist, theatre critic and PR consultant, among other jobs, before she finally sat down to write and sell her first novel, achieving her childhood dream. That first book was recognized with several honors including The Golden Leaf Award for Best Regency, 1994, and Gail hasn't looked back since. All of her books have been nominated for awards, and for the last two years in a row Gail has been one of Romantic Times Magazine’s nominees for Career Achievement in the Regency category.
Hailed by reviewers as brilliantly versatile and a master at painting pictures of Regency life, Gail is enjoying a growing reputation as a writer who pushes her genre to new levels with her emphasis on emotional depth and unusual plots. She lives in Wakefield, RI, with her actor/attorney husband and their two sons, and teaches Writing the Romance for Brown University. She holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature and Sociology from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. She loves writing and researching, but stubbornly refuses to give up her interests in theatre, dance, costuming, and the medieval period, even though she now has no time!
Jo Ann Ferguson is the best-selling lead author of Regencies and historicals for Kensington, paranormals for ImaJinn (writing as J.A. Ferguson), and historicals for Berkley (writing as Joanna Hampton), Harper, New Concepts Publishing, and Tudor. She also has written inspirational contemporaries for MountainView Publishing (writing as Jo Ann Brown). She contributed to an encyclopedia published by Garland on the English Regency period. Her work has been honored with award nominations by Pearl, ROMY, Romantic Times, Rom/Con, and Affaire de Coeur, and has been showcased on Amazon.com. The Counterfeit Count, May 1997 Zebra Regency, won the 1998 ARTemis Award for Regency from Romance Writers of America. She is the editor of Now That You've Sold Your Book ... What Next? and wrote the clause by clause explanation of publishing contracts included in it.
She served as national president of Romance Writers of America from 1998-2000 and is the recipient of the Emma Merritt National Service Award, the highest honor for volunteer work from Romance Writers of America, and has previously served RWA as a director, Vice President, Professional Relations chairperson, conference and workshops chairperson, and literacy autographing chairperson. She also received the first Goldrick Service Award from the New England Chapter/Romance Writers of America. The service award of the Rhode Island Romance Writers is named in her honor. She was awarded a Massachusetts Art Grant to teach creative writing, and she established the romance writing course at Brown University.
Blanche Marriott has been writing romance novels since 1991. After several false starts, she finally completed her third book, The Power of Passion, in 1994, which went on to win several awards in a number of romance contests. In 2001 she won a short story contest and promptly sold three short stories followed by her first book length sale, Kaleidoscope, in March 2002.
While balancing her career as a wood products manufacturing manager, she has completed eleven novels and numerous short stories and articles. She’s also served on the Board of Directors of both Rhode Island Romance Writers and New England Chapter/ RWA. Her spare time has been dedicated to working on the conference committee of the New England Chapter for six of its eight years. Blanche lives in Rhode Island with her contractor husband Walt, firefighter son Ken, and paranoid cat Jackson.
Copyright © 2001-2007 Rhode Island Romance Writers
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