Authors to Try

Anna Montgomery Campbell (1991 – 15 March 2018), also known as Hêlîn Qereçox, was a British feminist, anarchist and prison abolition activist who fought with the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) in Rojava during the Syrian civil war.

Campbell was born in Lewes, East Sussex, the United Kingdom, the daughter of progressive rock musician Dirk Campbell. She was educated at the independent St Mary's Hall, Brighton, then went to study at University of Sheffield before moving to Bristol, where she worked as a plumber. Campbell was involved with many political movements, including the 2010 United Kingdom student protests, the Hunt Saboteurs Association, Anarchist Black Cross and other anarchist and abolitionist organisations.

Elizabeth Hoyt is the pen name of Nancy M. Finney. Hoyt is a New York Times bestselling author of historical romance. She also writes contemporary romance under the name Julia Harper. She lives in central Illinois with her husband and two children.

Caroline Linden is an American author of historical and contemporary romance. She won Romance Writers of America RITA Award for Best Romance Novella in 2012 for I Love the Earl, making it the first digital-first publication to win this award. Her books have been translated into eleven foreign languages.

Linden grew up the daughter of a member of United States Air Force. She earned her undergraduate degree in math from Harvard University and worked doing actuarial coding for a financial services firm. She met her husband in the math department of Harvard.

After a brief stint in Miami, she returned to Boston with her family, which created a break in her computer programming career. She decided to try fiction writing one night when she had nothing to read and a new iMac. After spending five years on three manuscripts, her agent sold What A Woman Needs. She likes writing books set in Regency England because it was "rich in intrigue and drama, with a major war, political upheaval, national scandals and spies, but it was also on the cusp of a new age of invention and scientific discovery. It was a good age for woman, historically speaking. It was also a beautiful age, with an emphasis on graceful architecture, landscaping and fashion—and that always makes a world more appealing."

Lisa Kleypas is a best-selling American author of historical and contemporary romance novels. In 1985, she was named Miss Massachusetts 1985 and competed in the Miss America 1986 pageant in Atlantic City.

Alissa Johnson is an American ski jumper, who has been ranked in the top ten in the world. She was involved in the drive to add women's ski jumping to the Winter Olympics, being featured in the film Ready to Fly. Johnson attempted to qualify for the event when it was included in the programme at the 2014 Games but was not selected for the US team.

Teresa Medeiros (born 1962/1963) is an American award-winning romance novelist. She wrote her first novel at 21. Before becoming an author, she was a nurse. According to her official biography, she lives in Kentucky.

Her books have appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list. She is a two-time Fantasy, Futuristic, and Paranormal Romance Writers PRISM Award winner, and two-time recipient of the Waldenbooks Award for bestselling fiction. Additionally she is a charter member of the Romance Writers of America Honor Roll. She is also a member of Kentucky Romance Writers and Novelists, Inc.

Lorraine Heath is an American author of contemporary romance, historical romance, paranormal romance and young adult novels under multiple pen names, including Rachel Hawthorne, J.A. London, and Jade Parker. She is known for her "beautiful, deeply emotional romances" and in 1997, she received the Romance Writers of America RITA Award for Best Short Historical Romance for her novel Always to Remember. As of June 2015, fifteen of her titles made the USA Today bestseller list.

Heath was born in Watford, Hertfordshire, England from an American father and a British mother. Her parents met while her a father was stationed at Bovingdon while serving in the air force. Shortly after Heath's birth, her family moved to Texas where she was raised in Angleton, Texas.

Ash: A Secret History is a fantasy novel by British author Mary Gentle, published in 2000. Set in the 15th century, the novel blends elements of fantasy, alternative history, and secret history. In the United States, it was published in four paperback volumes: A Secret History, Carthage Ascendant, Wild Machines, and Lost Burgundy.

Susan Tatum Woodhouse (born August 7, 1958, Suffolk, Virginia), known by her pseudonym Liz Carlyle, is an American writer of romance novels since 1999, primarily of historical romances.

Susan Tatum Woodhouse was born in 1958 in Suffolk, Virginia. She attended college on a Scripps Howard writing scholarship and majored in journalism. She is married to Edward Carlyle, and has two stepchildren.

She spent much of her career working in human resources and labor relations in the chemical and automotive industries. She didn't begin writing until December 1996, when she was between jobs. She finished the novel within two months and attempted to find a publisher for it. Although that work did not sell, Pocket Books was interested in seeing more of her work. In 1998 they bought two novels from her, publishing the first, My False Heart, in 1999. In 2003, she contributed a novella to the anthology Big Guns, marking her first foray into contemporary romance.

Stephanie Laurens, is a best-selling Australian author of romance novels.

Tessa Dare is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling American historical romance novelist. She has authored fifteen novels and novellas and created four different series. In 2012, she won the prestigious Romance Writers of America RITA award for Best Regency Historical Romance for her book A Night to Surrender.

During childhood, her family moved often and books took on an important role for her. She says they became "my refuge, my entertainment, my source of information on all sorts of topics... in a way, they were my home. Whenever I felt lonely or uprooted, opening a familiar book gave me comfort. I would read through dinner, read through classes, read into the wee hours of the night, and, yes, I even read while walking!"

Candace Pauline Hopcus née Camp (May 23, 1949 in Amarillo, Texas) is an American writer of romance novels. She has also published under the pen names Lisa Gregory, Sharon Stephens, Kristin James and under her maiden name Candace Camp.

Born Candace Pauline Camp on May 23, 1949 in Amarillo, Texas, she is the youngest of three children born to Lula Mae (Irons) and Grady Camp. Writing came naturally to her—her mother had been a newspaper reporter, and her father was the business manager of the Amarillo, Texas newspaper. Camp began writing down her own stories when she was 10, and often wrote when she needed to relax.

Camp attended the University of Texas at Austin and West Texas State University before becoming a teacher in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. After moving to North Carolina, she took a job in the trust department of a bank.

The RITA Award was the most prominent award for English-language romance fiction from 1990 to 2019. It was presented by the Romance Writers of America (RWA). The purpose of the RITA Award was to promote excellence in the romance genre by recognizing outstanding published novels and novellas. It was named for the RWA's first president, Rita Clay Estrada. It was not awarded in 2020, and was replaced by the Vivian Award, awarded for the first time in 2021.

The 2022 Vivians were postponed, with works that would have been eligible in 2022 eligible for the 2023 Vivians instead.

The RITA Award opened for entries in the fall. Entrants had to supply five printed books by the posted deadline. Each title was judged by five separate judges during the preliminary round. Finalists were announced in mid-March and winners were announced at the annual award ceremony, held on the last day of the RWA's National Conference, which was normally held in July. Winning authors received a gold statuette while book editors received a plaque.

Valerie Bowman is an author of historical romance novels, and specifically Regency romance novels.

Suzanne Enoch (born California) is an American author of best-selling contemporary and historical Regency romance novels.

Enoch began writing down her own stories when she was a child. She graduated from the University of California, Irvine with a degree in English. Her first attempts at writing were in the romantic fantasy genre, but she soon began writing Regency romances. Her first novel, The Black Duke's Prize, was published by Avon in 1995. She finally quit her full-time job in 2002 to devote herself to writing.

Although Enoch has had great success writing Regency romances, in 2005 she published her first contemporary romantic suspense novel. She has continued to write in both genres, telling an interviewer that "I think working in one genre replenishes my energy for the other." Her novels have appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list as well as those compiled by USAToday and Publishers Weekly.

Maria Rodale is an American businesswoman and author who served as chief executive officer and chairman of Rodale, Inc., an Emmaus, Pennsylvania-based publisher of health, wellness, and environmental content. She is the third generation of the Rodale family to lead the company, which was founded by her grandfather J. I. Rodale in 1930, then led by both her father Robert Rodale and subsequent to that by her mother, Ardath Rodale.

Karen Hawkins (born Tennessee) is a best-selling American author of sixteen historical romance novels. Her novels are known for their humor.

Hawkins was raised in Tennessee, where she lived with her parents, biological brother and sister, an adopted sister, numerous foster siblings and a number of foreign exchange students. It was not uncommon for 12-15 children to be living in the house at any one time.

Hawkins has a Ph.D. in political science, and spent time teaching political science at a small college in Georgia. She studied writing by joining the Romance Writers of America and attending their workshops and conferences. Before she was published, she won RWA chapter and national contests for her work, allowing her to gain feedback and critiques from actual editors. With this feedback, she refined her craft, and sold her first book in 1998. She now publishes two books a year. Hawkins was also the driving force behind the two Lady Whistledown anthologies, developing the idea, gaining a publisher, and organizing the intertwined parts of the books. She also has a beautiful son and daughter who inspire her to write and for whom she enjoys making sandwiches.