Great characters lead to great tales

“The characters are always the focal point of a book for me, whether I'm writing or reading. I may enjoy a book that has an intriguing mystery or a good plot, but to become one of my real favorites, it has to have great characters.” – Candace Camp

 Camp, who was born on this date in 1949, is a native Texan who started her prolific writing career while earning a law degree in the 1970s.  She said writing just seemed to come naturally to her, and she actually began “writing to relax” at age 10 and has been writing ever since.  The majority of her works are in the Romance genre where she’s published a remarkable 70-plus novels under both her own name and the pseudonyms of Lisa Gregory, Kristin James and Sharon Stevens. 

Her first book Bonds of Love came out as Lisa Gregory in 1979 and her most recent, The Marrying Season, as Candace Camp just a couple of years ago.         Her publisher is now working with her to re-edit most of the pseudonym books to re-release them under her own name.

Writing runs in her family.  Her daughter is Young Adult writer Anastasia Hopcus and her mother Lula Mae (Irons) Camp was a journalist.

“My mother was a reporter, and though she quit when they had kids, she still loved it,” Camp said.  “She told me about the people at the paper and the articles she wrote. She had the best memory of anyone I know, and she could really tell a tale.”

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