Catherine Scott, writer/editor

     I started telling stories before I could read or write, when words were talk. My childish drawings of aquariums, wildflower fields, houses and stick people were for the sole purpose of telling a story about the fish, birds, people, and other creatures in the pictures. In those days, I drew no villains. It was all about family life, starting with the gallant goldfish on the right side of the aquarium in wont of the contrary Betta fish living on the left side of the aquarium. They married and had baby fish.
  
      About the time I learned to read and write (coincidentally, about the same time I learned a little about real life) villains emerged.

     This contrary Betta fish escaped the safety of her globe one day and headed to the mall. I was in my early teens, not quite a young woman at that transitory age, strolling in the mall, carrying a Macy's bag that contained Lancome Mascara. I had arrived, but not quite, as I also clutched a newly purchased stuffed Gund bear in the other arm. And then something colorful caught my eye. Pink hibiscus and blue-green tropical foliage surrounding a man and woman in a sweltering embrace. The cover of Shanna, by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. I went into the bookstore, and this time not to the Nancy Drew section. I had enough money to buy the hefty book if I decided to forgo a lamb gyro at Olga's. Later that same day, forgetting my makeup and Gund bear, I took up a position in an aluminum lawn chair under the peach tree in our backyard and read. And read some more, stopping only long enough to go inside to escape the mosquitoes. I read through the night. I fell in love with love. You see, our hero, Roarke, persistently pursued the contrary heroine, Shanna. A Renaissance man, he built a sugar cane manufacturing machine, sailed a ship through a hurricane, beat up pirates, and became the pirate captain himself. <big sigh> Believable? Only if you believe that a handsome, sinewy Renaissance man and bonafide rock star can fall in love with a red-headed, freckle-faced, occasionally neurotic female and give up his rakish ways, marry, and become the best father and husband a girl with impossible expectations could want. 

     Seriously, the epic high-adventure of books such as Kathleen Woodiwiss's Shanna and Julie Garwood's The Bride and The Gift are what separates historical romance fiction from historical fiction. I enjoy both, but confess that I've read far more romance novels than straight historical fiction. <shrug> I'm an unapologetic fan.

     Romance novels should make you wish and hope and dream. I strive to write historical romance like that.
 
     About that rock star ... I'm happily married to him, a mother of two grown offspring, enjoy good food and wine, have a license to ride a motorcycle, and have ridden my own Harley-Davidson Sportster 1200cc. Most times, however, I ride on the back of my husband's Harley-Davidson. I enjoy seeing the United States on a Harley, and other locations around the world by any means necessary, including but not limited to airplanes, automobiles, trains, boats, buses, bicycles, helicopters, canoes, kayaks, dog sleds, and foot power.

Picture, below-left: Gettysburg, PA battlefield, as seen from the back of a chrome pony

 

Picture, top: Me and My Mr. Darcy heading out and about astride his chrome pony

Picture, bottom: Me in writing attire (comfortable combed cotton) and Twinky-cat, a black smoke Cornish Rex, who has no problem hearing. Writers, it seems, must love cats, and there is no cat more cat-like than a rex.