I’ve frequently been asked why I chose to write romance and not some other genre. The truth is I didn’t choose romance, romance chose me. I knew at a very young age that I wanted to write. I started scribbling poetry when I was in grade school to deal with some childhood traumas. In the seventh grade I had an incredible science teacher in a really horrible science class who saw something in me that I hadn’t yet seen in myself. One day after I’d spent months in her classroom scribbling stories and poetry in the margins of my science workbook she pulled me aside and told me I’d been blessed with an incredible gift. It was her words of encouragement and motivation that followed me through school and into adulthood. I am writing today because this teacher made me understand that I could. My first manuscript was not a romance. At least I didn’t think so. (Neither did die hard romance fans but that’s another story!) I was blessed though that an astute editor at BET Books liked what she read