Seeing characters and stories 'everywhere'

"With historicals, the research is half the fun.  Contemporaries are especially easy.  People are right out there in front of you; you meet them every day.  You can concentrate wholly on the story and characters." – Heather Graham Pozzessere 

 Born in Miami, Fla., on March 15, 1953 Pozzessere has penned more than 150 novels and novellas, writing in the historical, romance, paranormal and suspense genres.  Also known under both her maiden name Heather Graham, and pen name Shannon Drake, she has built a faithful reading audience that ranges in age from teenagers to women in their 90s – “and men, too,” she said, “especially for my Civil War era books.”  Her most recent, co-authored with Jon Land, is Blood Moon.

 

Once an aspiring actress, Pozzessere has starred instead as a writer – awarded the Romance Writers of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the Thriller Writer's Silver Bullet for her charitable efforts.  She is founder of the Florida Chapter of the Romance Writers of America, and a member of Mystery Writers of America, Novelists Inc., and the Horror Writers Association.

 

A graduate of the University of South Florida and mother of 5, Pozzessere started writing in the early 1980s.  Her first book, When Next We Love, came out in 1983, and she followed it with a remarkable 12 more titles from 1983 to 1985.  She said she sees characters and stories “everywhere.” 

 

“I always feel a responsibility to the people I write about,” she said.  “I feel obligated to portray them in the way they feel is proper.”