Credit for Adrianne's Photography: Lisa Hughes

  Dear Readers–

     I don’t think anyone would describe my life as over the top exciting.  I’ve mostly been a stay at home mom and part time Girl Friday for my contractor hubby.  Larry and I have been married for what he says seems like a hundred years (that's 42 actual years this July), we have three grown daughters and three granddaughters, the eldest of whom calls me her "famous grandmother." (She obviously has overestimated my influence in the publishing world, and the world in general.)

     I started writing poems (rhymes, actually) when I was in junior high, and continued doing this throughout high school.  My senior year, I actually contemplated writing a book, dreaming up characters disturbingly reminiscent of my classmates, but other than a few notes, the book never left the planning stage.  I had a discouraging experience in a creative writing
course I was taking at the time and I didn't attempt writing stories again
for twenty years.

     This bad experience did have one up-side.  I hated reading with a passion because I read painfully slow.  But after transferring out of the writing
course, I still needed a Lit credit to graduate.  So, that last quarter of
my senior year I was forced to take a literature class . . . with the most
wonderful teacher, deceased now, who taught me to love reading at any speed. I read all of Charles Dickens and over the ensuing years devoured all of Agatha Christie.  Reading is still my favorite hobby.

     About eighteen years later, I started writing rhymes again, for friends,
nothing publishable.  That was never a goal.  Still isn't.  When I turned
forty, I had a serious falling out with my best friend, and to fill the void
left by her absence in my life, I took a junior college course.  Writing
101.  The teacher was encouraging and nurturing.  She suggested basing my story on something I felt passionately about.  Since mysteries were what I
loved reading best, I put all my anger and hurt into a short mystery in
which I killed off my best friend.  Therapeutic, yes.  Good story telling?
Not a chance.

     So, how did I get to writing romantic/suspense?  In this class I met four
women who would later become my critique group for eleven years.  They were all writing romance: historical and contemporary.   My only references to those kinds of stories at this point were Kathleen E. Woodiwiss and Phyllis
Whitney.  But . . . I have always been a romantic at heart and it was
inevitable that their influences started rubbing off on me.  My reading
preferences expanded to include romances from mainstream to category to
historical and gothic.

     For seven years I worked hard toward getting published.  I improved my writing, learned my craft, queried agents and editors.  Several asked to see
my work.  Long months of waiting ensued followed by devastating rejections. Again and again, I brushed myself off and tried again.  Finally, one bleak Thursday afternoon, I received my gazillionth rejection from an agent who basically said no one would ever buy my book.  Thanks to the war in Iraq, my husband and I were in dire financial straits, reduced to living in our
weekend vacation cabin outside a small town in Eastern Washington, an hour
and a half drive to my weekly critique meetings.  It was the blackest day of
my life.

     I was being forced to give up my dream of getting published and get a job with an income.   I called my critique group to tell them I was quitting.  I
was sobbing so hard they probably thought I was dying.  I felt like I was.
They were ready to hope in a car and drive over to try and cheer me up.
Nothing could cheer me up.

     The next morning at 8 A.M., Ann La Farge, an editor from Kensington Books called and bought that book that “no one would ever buy.”  I sold  Zebra two books in all.  (They didn’t pay me enough for me to stay home and write, but somehow we managed without my getting a better paying job.)   I’m lucky to have a husband who believes in me and supports my efforts.  In June of 93, Harlequin Intrigue bought my third book.  With the advance check, I bought my first computer.  I have since sold Harlequin 14 Intrigues and am waiting to hear on new submissions.  I've also sold one novella to St. Martin's Press.

     I often tell aspiring writers to keep believing in themselves–no matter
what–no matter who tries to discourage you.   I think that’s a good approach to everything in life.

--Adrianne Lee

Adrianne with Kayla Perrin and Diana Rowe in Dallas at the Harlequin Party at the RWA Conference 2004!