At age 10, I watched Lost in Space in the morning, and General Hospital in the afternoon.  By 13, I'd moved on to devouring Sidney Sheldon novels and prime-time soaps.  I wrote my first romance novel at 17.  I didn't show it to anyone, but, ten years later, I did go back and reread it.  It wasn't very good.  But, it wasn't too bad, either.
 
I started sending manuscripts out to publishers when I was 22, but, it wasn't until three years later that I sold my first novel -The Fictitious Marquis, a Regency Romance - to AVON Books.  My second Regency, Thieves at Heart, came out a year later.  But, deep in my heart, I missed the larger-than-life characters and tense, romantic situations I'd cut my teeth on during my soap opera and Sidney Sheldon days.  I knew I wanted to write contemporary romances more than anything.

 Annie's Wild Ride, is my first contemporary romance, and, during the months I was writing it, I became obsessed with the characters.  Every song I heard on the radio reminded me of them.  Every conversation I had with friends and family was mined for lines my characters could say.  For a couple of months there, I lived their lives.

Not that my own life isn't as much fun to live in.  It's been twenty-eight years, and, so far so good.
 When I'm not writing for print (fiction, non-fiction, books, magazine articles) I write and produce for television.  I put my love of soap operas to use writing E! Entertainment's Pure Soap, and working on two Daytime Emmy Award shows, as well as for ABC Daytime.  I utilized my love of movies and theater working on the opening of Broadway's Chicago, and FOX's Anastasia.  TV work has taken me all over the world, including France (that's me in front of Notre Dame in January 1997), Switzerland, Japan, Russia, and Israel.
 
The latter two were particularly significant for me, as I was born in the former USSR, but, being Jewish, my family high-tailed it out of there as soon as possible (1977).  The only English word I knew starting the second grade (in the middle of the year) in San Francisco, CA was 'the.'  It has proven to be a very useful word.
 
But, even when I could barely speak English, I was already a story-teller.  There was no way to avoid it.  It's in the blood.  All the women in my family love to talk.  And talk.  And talk.  My grandmother tells stories about long-lost relatives with details so vivid and precise, they practically materialize in front of your eyes.  My mother and aunt interrupt those stories to add details and recollections of their own, and then my cousin and I interrupt with questions.  It's a process.  And a tradition.  That's a picture of all of us talkers -- my grandmother Khana, my aunt Janna, my mother, Nelly, my cousin, Julia, and me, holding my newest cousin, Isabelle.  When this photo was taken, she hadn't yet started to talk.  But, these days, she's certainly making up for lost time (mostly English, but her dad throws a Russian word or two in there).
 Now, I'm just waiting for her to learn how to read!