Dahpne Clair is one of many pseudonyms of Daphne de Jong, a New Zealand writer who also uses the names Laurie Bright, Claire Lorel and Clarissa Garland. She is the winner of the Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award and has been a finalist for the Romance Writers of America Rita Award more than once. Daphne Clair de Jong decided to be a writer when she was eight years old and won her first literary prize for a school essay. Her first short story was published when she was sixteen and she's been writing and publishing ever since. Nowadays she earns her living from writing, something her well-meaning teachers and guidance counsellors warned her she would never achieve in New Zealand. Her short stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, and a collection of them was presented in Crossing the Bar, published by David Ling, where they garnered wide praise. In 1976, Daphne's first full-length romantic novel was published by Mills & Boon as Return to Love. Since then she has produced a steady output of romance set in New Zealand, occasionally Australia or on imaginary Pacific islands. As Laurey Bright she also writes for Silhouette Books. Her romances often appear on American stores' romance best-seller lists and she has been a Rita contest finalist, as well as winning and being placed in several other romance writing contests. Her other writing includes non-fiction, poetry and long historical fiction, She also is an active defender of the ideology of Feminists for Life, and she has written articles about it. Since then she has won other literary prizes both in her native New Zealand and other countries. These include the prestigious Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award, with Dying Light, a story about Alzheimer's Disease, which was filmed by Robyn Murphy Productions and shown at film festivals in several countries. (Starring Sara McLeod, Sam's wife in Lord of the Rings). Daphne is often asked to tutor courses in creative writing, and with Robyn Donald she teachs romance writing weekend courses in her home in the "winterless north" of in New Zealand. Daphne lives with her Netherlands-born husband in a farmlet, grazing livestock, growing their own fruit and vegetables and making their large home available to other writers as a centre for writers' workshops and retreats. Their five children, one of them an orphan from Hong Kong, have left home but drift back at irregular intervals. She enjoys cooking special meals but her cake-making is limited to three never-fail recipes. Her children maintain they have no memory of her baking for them except on birthdays, when she would produce, on request, cakes shaped into trains, clowns, fairytale houses and, once, even a windmill, in deference to their Dutch heritage from their father. Daphne frequently makes and breaks resolutions to indulge in some hearty outdoor activity, and loves to sniff strong black coffee but never drinks it. After a day at her desk she will happily watch re-runs of favourite TV shows. Usually she goes to bed early with a book which may be anything from a paperback romance or suspense novel to history, sociology or literary theory.

Mary Jane Schultz was a writer since childhood. She was thrilled to sell her first young adult romance novel in 1986 as Mary Schultz. Since that time she has written a great number of books for both teenage and adult audiences. Under the pseudonym of Leandra Logan has enjoyed both success and fulfillment writing for Harlequin. Her books routinely make the B. Dalton and Waldenbooks lists. As well, she has been nominated for numerous awards within the industry. A lifelong resident of Minnesota, she and her family recently moved to the historic town of Stillwater. She looks forward to strolling along the main street, and mingling with the artists and book lovers who frequent the area's quaint shops and eateries. But there are countless tasks to take care of around the new place—the biggest being the yard work! There are rocks to haul, dirt to grade, and seeds to sow! Optimistically, it will give her a lot of time to work out her plots.

Born in England, Jasmine Cresswell now divides her time between her winter home in Sarasota, Florida and her summer home in Evergreen, Colorado. Jasmine has been writing since 1975 and has published over 50 novels, with 9 million copies of her books in print. Jasmine served for two years as the editor of the Romance Writer's Report. She also served as president of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, and is a founder and former president of Novelists, Inc. She received the Colorado Authors' League Award for Best Paperback Novel of the Year and the Romance Writers of America Golden Rose Award. Her books also have received numerous Romantic Times certificates of excellence. Experienced as a public speaker, Jasmine has conducted college seminars and addressed many writers' conferences. Interviews and profiles have appeared in newspapers throughout the country, and Jasmine considers herself a veteran of talk shows and news broadcasts. Married to Malcolm Candlish, whom she met while she was working for the British Embassy in Rio de Janeiro, Jasmine and her husband have lived all over the world. She has a Bachelor's Degree with a double major in history and philosophy from Melbourne University, a second degree in history from Macquarie University, as well as a Masters Degree in history and archival administration from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.

Barbara Keiler aka Ariel Berk, Thea Frederick, Judith Arnold Barbara Keiler was born on April 7th. She started telling stories before shecould write. She was four when her sister, Carolyn, stuffed a crayon intoher hand and taught her the alphabet, and she's been writing ever since. Barbara is a graduate of Smith College, where she learned to aim for thestars, and she received a master's degree in creative writing from BrownUniversity, where she took aim at a good-looking graduate student in thechemistry department and wound up marrying him. She says: "Before myhusband and I were married, I had a job in California and he was working onhis Ph.D. in Rhode Island. I became ill, and he hopped on a plane and flewacross the country to be with me. Neither of us had any money, but he saidhe simply couldn't concentrate on his research, knowing I was three thousandmiles away and facing a serious health problem all by myself. He stayed fortwo weeks, until I was pretty well recovered. That he would just drop whathe was doing, put his life on hold and race to my side told me how much heloved me. After that, I knew this was the man I wanted to marry." Barbara has received writing fellowships from the Shubert Foundation and theNational Endowment for the Arts, and has taught at colleges and universitiesaround the country. She has also written several plays that have beenprofessionally staged at regional theaters in San Francisco, Washington, D.C.,Connecticut and off-off-Broadway. Since her first romance novel's publication in 1983 as Ariel Berk. Shewrote one novel as Thea Frederick, and since 1985 she writes asJudith Arnold. Barbara has sold more than 70 novels, with eight millioncopies in print worldwide. She has recently signed a contract with MIRABooks. Her first MIRA novel will appear in 2001. She has received severalawards from Romantic Times Magazine, including awards for the Best HarlequinAmerican Romance of the Year, Best Harlequin Superromance of the Year, BestSeries Romantic Novel of the Year and a Lifetime Achievement Certificate ofMerit for Innovative Series Romance. She has also been a finalist for theGolden Medallion Award and the RITA Award for Romance Writer of America. Hernovel Barefoot in the Grass has appeared on the recommended reading listsdistributed by cancer support services at several hospitals. Barbara lives in a small town not far from Boston, Massachusetts, New England with her husband, two teenage sons, and a guinea pig named Wilbur. Her sister Carolyn died of breast cancer in 1998.

Maggie Osborne aka Margaret St. George Maggie Osborne is the author of I Do, I Do, I Do and Silver Lining, as well as more than forty contemporary and historical romance novels written as Maggie Osborne and Margaret St. George. She has won numerous awards from Romantic Times, Affaire de Coeur, BookraK, the Colorado Romance Writers, and Coeur du Bois, among others. Osborne won the RITA for long historical from the Romance Writers of America in 1998. Maggie lives in a resort town in the Colorado mountains with her husband, one mule, two horses, one cat, and one dog, all of whom are a lot of aggravation, but she loves them anyway.