Reading

When I was old enough to start reading, I quickly discovered my love for books.  I’m pretty sure that somewhere I still have my first-grade readers of ‘Dick and Jane’. While math wasn’t easy for me, spelling and reading became as easy as breathing.

My formative years were often spent in the basement of the local library. That where the children’s section was located. I would curl up in a bean bag chair and read for hours. Those first books were all about horses. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. The Black Stallion by Walter Farley, and King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry.  Then I moved on to Shel Silverstein’s books. A Light in the Attic, Where the Sidewalk Ends, and Falling Up quickly became my favorites. 

I’m not sure exactly when I discovered romance novels. I only know that at some point, stories by Sandra Brown and Nora Roberts replaced my young adult books. To this day, my favorite story ever is still Nora Robert’s Chesapeake Blue. 

Writing

In my early high school years, I remember writing several badly written short stories. Many of those stories remain incomplete and none saw the light of day. 

Just after the birth of my second child, I decided I wanted to try and write for real.  I spent a couple of years honing my craft. Thank you to the website Critique Circle for teaching me so much of what I needed to know. After a few years, I finally had a story picked up by the boutique publisher Samhain. That began about a ten-year career of multiple published novels before life and burnout took its toll and I decided to stop publishing.

When I was writing full-time, I wrote under two names. Michelle Cary wrote about the sweet, slow-burn type of romance. Sienna Stapleton tackled the sexy, spicy topics. You can still find most of these stories available on Amazon.