We’re delighted to introduce Marilee Smith, who won second-place in our romance writing contest that resulted in our newest title and celebrates our 20th anniversary here at YourNovel.com.
We loved reading Marilee’s story because we’ve actually visit the Greek islands she so vividly paints in her prose. The other judges agreed. We also also especially enjoyed her humor.
Marliee was born in Pennsylvania, grew up in central Illinois, lived in Denver, CO, and Tuscon, AZ, and currently lives in Grand Island, NE. She is married to her high school “hunka-hunka burnin’ love” and has a love that “never managed to fizzle” despite many obstacles.
Marilee has a B.A. from Illinois State University, an MA/ABD from the University of Denver as well as “an exotic junket for a PhD” at the Island of Nevis in the Caribbean and the now-closed Berne International University. She has taught writing, theater, advertising and mass communications primarily as an adjunct professor at community colleges as well as four-year colleges and universities.
She has also dabbled as a manager of a hotel bar/restaurant in Luxembourg; a licensed apprentice pharmacist at hospitals and pharmacies; a clerk in a police department; a secretary in a detective bureau; and a writer/producer for a television station.
We’d love to hear some of her stories from those jobs.
She entered the YourNovel.com contest because “the fun of marrying a passion for travel with written romance was just too tempting.” She was encouraged to write after her “coffeehouse cohorts deserted me for paid employment.”
Her story, “Greco-Romance,” is about “a couple sharing peak experiences while cruising to two Greek isles, and almost inadvertently, through their love bringing a family together as a bonus.” The two islands are Santorini and Rhodes; she has visited both and describes them as “sun-soaked destinations that have a way of seeping into your soul.”
Marilee says of writing romance, “[It] requires finding words for someone’s most secret, often contradictory desires. As unsavory as it sounds, romance writers need to climb between the sheets with characters, adding color commentary.”
Well put.