PUBLISHED GRAD

What is the name of your book or article? Who is the publisher?
Praline Dreams
The Wild Rose Press

Give us a short summary of your book.
Mermaid Daria Drake and her father own an ice cream shop on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. When a handsome stranger with his own secret saves her from a trio of troublemakers, attraction between the two is almost instant.

Tell us a bit about your path to publishing, from idea to submission to published.
When my publisher detailed this line, the story idea instantly popped into my head. I wrote the rough draft in a week, completed all the edits the next week and had it to my editor. She’d never had a mermaid story before and loved it. I was surprised it got contracted so quickly. I loved the idea of a mermaid owning a shop on land.

How long have you been writing?
I started writing when I was about nine or ten. I seriously considered writing as a career in 2000. I got my first contract in 2013.

What’s your favorite genre to write and why?
Paranormal romance.

Which courses have you taken with us?

• Writing for Children and Teenagers
• Creating and Selling Short Stories and Articles
• Breaking Into Print
• Shape, Write, and Sell Your Novel

How has taking our courses helped your writing and/or career?
Taking these courses helped me to learn the craft. I discovered what I was doing wrong and how to correct those errors. I could tell a good story, but I needed to learn the technical part of writing. I still have all my course materials and still refer back to them.

Have any of your class assignments been published? If so, where and when?
My last assignment was contracted in 2013 by The Wild Rose Press and came out in print in 2014.

Do you have a favorite writing tip you’d like to share?
I think this came from Nora Roberts. She said, “Put your butt in the chair. You can’t edit a blank page.”

If you could travel back in time and give yourself one piece of writing advice, how far back would you go, and what would you tell yourself?
I would go back to my freshman year in high school. I took a writing course that summer and didn’t follow up by writing more. I would tell myself to keep at it and learn all I could.

Please tell us the best or most valuable thing you learned from your experience with ICL and IFW.
With having deadlines to get my assignments back, it helped put me on a writing schedule I could handle. Time management was one of the best things I could have learned. I had to think about this, because I learned so much great stuff.

Do you need any special experience or job to be a writer?
No. I have a high school diploma and worked in retail for a lot of years. You just need to have ideas and a love of the craft.

Annette Miller grew up in Baltimore. She traveled all over with her Air Force husband. She has two boys and her family is always willing to give advice and help out with her writer’s block. With her first book, she combined romance and superheroes and her Angel Haven series was born.