How did a small town Midwesterner ever decide to write about witches?? Well, I’ve always been the type of person who believed if I could read about it, I could do it, so when at the tender age of 48, I decided to write, I bought every book about the craft of writing that I could. The first piece of advice was to write what you like to read, and at the time I was reading a lot of romance. Okay, so we’ll try our hand at romance. I bought (again) the books I deemed necessary to help me with my quest and set about writing a romance novella. I leaned two things. First of all, I can’t write a love scene to save my life!! And if one is going to write romance, love scenes are kind of important! The second thing I learned is that if you use a password, be sure, and write it down. You might not remember it six months down the road if you don’t. Yes, I pass worded that terrible novella, but forgot what it was! The good thing is—that piece of literature, and I use the term loosely, is forever lost and…

Ideas come to authors at different times and in different ways. Sometimes one flash is enough to trigger an entire story. That’s what happened with THE POWER OF TWO. I was staring out the window at my day job when the word “nanotechnology” came into my mind. All I had to do was ask, well, what about it? and the next thing I knew, I had my heroine, the hero, and the way they were tied to each other. Other times, nothing more than a concept pops into my head and I’ll write down what I have and file it away for some day. Only some day never seems to come–except with my latest book. IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR started with a dream I had more than ten years ago. I knew the hero’s name–Deke Summers–I knew he was under a magical curse, and I was aware of what that curse was, but there was no heroine and no story. I wrote down the concept in one sentence and moved on. I loved the idea and hoped that some day I’d have a plot to go with it, but I didn’t hold out much hope because I have file drawers…

The heroes of Bonnie Vanak’s Egyptian books stood outside their creator’s house. Jabari of The Falcon & the Dove gave the door a blank look. “What’s wrong?” asked Graham of The Panther & the Pyramid. “I do not know what to do,” Jabari admitted. “I live in a tent.” Kenneth of The Cobra & the Concubine rolled his eyes. “You knock, you bloody fool.” “Do not call my father a bloody fool,” warned Tarik of The Sword & the Sheath. “You once lived in a tent.” “Do you think we should formally announce ourselves?” asked Ramses of The Tiger & the Tomb. “After all, she is not writing and may not want to see us.” The men exchanged glances. “You’re right,” said Thomas of The Scorpion & the Seducer. “We should just walk in and surprise her.” They went inside, walked down a hallway and entered a bedroom. Bonnie was sorting through laundry. Shock dawned in her eyes. “Not you guys again!” “We came here to recharge your creativity,” Thomas explained. “You haven’t written since my story was finished. I’m not published until next May, so you have time to write your next Egyptian historical.” Bonnie laughed. “What time? Come…

I’ve been an avid reader since I was ten years old. Blame it on the elementary school’s reading program (re: read twenty books in a month and win a prize!). I wanted that prize, so I read the twenty books. Along the way, I discovered…I LOVED reading. Since then, I’ve always had my nose stuck in a book, much to my childhood best friend’s annoyance. When I was in tenth grade and my older sister was in twelfth, she brought home an assigned reading book. The fiction book sat in the exact same spot she’d dumped it—on the chair next to the stairs—for days. After a week of passing by this book, I picked it up and read the blurb on the back. A mystery to solve and a love story…hmmm, it didn’t sound too bad. I sat down that night and read the entire book and I loved it! I was so excited about the story that I told my sister all about it, hoping I could get her excited enough to read it herself. While I blabbed on and on, my sister nodded and uh huh’d and smiled. The next day she wrote the book report and turned…

I can’t be the only one. I hope. Are writers the only people who occasionally wake up with this scene in their head, like they were watching a movie while they slept? I do that quite often. I think it’s the best part of being a writer. I can lie in bed and slowly wake up from that dream that has my heart pounding and honestly, with complete sincerity, say I AM WORKING. So, this one summer night, I had a dream. I was in the past, way back like a medieval, and there was this warrior and his bride. She didn’t know him, was very afraid of him – not that I knew why at the time. It was a dream. All I knew was right there, sometime that night, they had to consummate the wedding. Now, for some reason, my brain tends to skip to the good stuff. So I pictured the warm skin and the closeness, his scarred muscles and her fear. There was caressing and gentleness and lots of invasion of private space. Then I went back. Like rewind. I do that. I wanted to know, now that I’d seen these two people together, who were…

I wrote my first book when I was nine, the story of an unwanted teddy bear that found a new and loving home. Poor teddy! I guess even at the age of nine was a little dark, LOL! Years later, I tried my hand at romantic comedy (an abysmal failure). My next attempt was at a lighthearted, fun historical, the kind I loved to read. Only problem was, no matter how hard I tried, I just wasn’t funny. Everything that flowed from my imagination was creepy and dark and moody. So what is it with me and dark books? Whether I’m writing historical gothics or sexy, contemporary paranormals as Eve Silver, or speculative romance as Eve Kenin, everything I write is dark, dark, dark (with the occasional quirky humor thrown in). What is it about a dark, tortured hero that is so appealing? And why does the heroine love him when he’s so hard to love? In my historical gothics (DARK PRINCE, HIS DARK KISS, DARK DESIRES), the heroes are secretive and a little sinister. Terrible things have happened to them, and they’ve done terrible things in turn. Yet, the tortured hero captures the love of the heroine and the…

So You’re the Writer I get asked that a lot. By everyone. My doctor. My dentist. Neighbors. Friends to my extended family. I’m not “a” writer. I’m “the” writer. Like there’s only one. Or it’s so odd, it deserves special definition. Most times I keep the writerly part of myself private. Only with other writers and among readers who know I’m published do I relax about my profession. But somehow, everyone finds out. And it’s always embarrassing. I’M not embarrassed to be a writer. No, never that. I LOVE being a writer. But some people have these interpretations, or just things they say, or maybe WHEN they say them, or HOW they say them, that can make it very uncomfortable. I recently attended a neighborhood block party, and lo and behold, the topic of my books came up. I’m NOT the one who raised the subject. A woman said, “You’re the writer!” And a male neighbor – a nice guy, but still… told me that, given what his wife reads of my work, he expected me to be a hottie. I’m positive that I disappointed him. 🙂 Not too long ago, I was sitting at a high school sporting event…

I’m often asked how an airline pilot/ex-USAF jet jockey ended up writing romance. “Easy,” I say. “Too little time on the ground coupled with way too much time to think!” Trust me, nothing aids plot-hatching and character-developing like fifteen straight hours stuck in the cockpit with lukewarm coffee and a sky so black you can see every star in the Milky Way. I do six to eight Pacific crossings in a month. On any given day, you can find my body clock hovering somewhere between Tokyo and Sacramento. Ouch. Perpetual jet lag. But on the up side, the sights, smells, and tastes of the exotic locales I visit, and the conversations I have with people I’d never normally meet, provide the most amazing material to weave into my stories. With a little imagination, a dank high-walled alley in Taipei, ripe with the stench of sewage, garlic, and moped exhaust becomes the lower deck of an ill-maintained 19th century sailing ship. A Chinese restaurant where I nibble on pickled jelly fish, stir-fried fungus, and sautéed morning glory transforms into dinner-for-two on a distant planet.Okay, so I’m a hopeless daydreamer. Only I don’t publicize that fact – I mean, the last thing…

It’s not my fault. I swear, I wasn’t the one who killed Kelly Ripa’s book club. Sure, I know it looks suspicious. In 2002 she was rockin’ along with her anti-Oprah picks, six of them, and didn’t we love it? Books with happy endings were getting on a TV talk show! Carly Phillips made it! Romance writers had a shot! More important – it was all about me – I had a shot. I figured Nerd in Shining Armor might make the grade with Kelly. Then she went on maternity leave and Reading with Ripa took a short break. But the book club message boards were still up, and no one was throwing in the towel, least of all me. Time marched on, however. My book came out the end of April, 2003, and no word from the LIVE folks indicating the book club would resume. It seems Kelly was home nursing her baby. I ask you, where were her priorities? Had no one suggested that she could nurse a baby and read a romance at the same time? In May, Kelly returned from maternity leave, and I held my breath. I held my breath for a very long time,…

One of the questions I get asked most is whether it’s difficult to write in different genres. The answer is absolutely not. I love genre jumping. In fact, I think it would make me insane if I were to write in only one genre. Perhaps that’s because I’ve been writing in multiple genres since I started writing. It’s impossible for me to stick to one…flavor. I love so many. When I first started writing for Ellora’s Cave, I started in contemporary, then branched out into paranormal. Then I got this great idea about faeries so I started a fantasy series. Then came futuristics and…well, you get the idea. I can’t seem to stay with one genre, and I’m fine with that.Several years and multiple publishers later, I’ve pretty much settled on mainstream paranormal romance and contemporary erotic romance…mostly. And that was because I was given the wonderful opportunity to write for Bantam Dell and Berkley, and each contracted me for something completely different, which was like a dream come true. I’ve always wanted to write paranormal romance, and my writing roots were in erotic romance. Now I can do both. And I also write for Samhain Publishing where I can…