Fern michaels biography

PERSONAL:

Born April 9, 1933, in Hastings, PA; lass of Albert and Lucy Kovac; married Michael Kuczkir (an engineer), October 3, 1952 (divorced); children: Cynthia, Susy, Patty, Mike, Dave. Hobbies and other interests: Hike, visiting friends, looking at antiques, gardening, traveling, walking her dogs.

ADDRESSES:

Home—SC.

E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer. Worked as market researcher.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Inducted into New Jersey Legendary Hall of Fame.

WRITINGS:

ROMANCE NOVELS; Confident ROBERTA ANDERSON; UNDER JOINT Stage name FERN MICHAELS

Pride and Passion, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1975.

Vixen agreement Velvet, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1976.

Captive Passions, Ballantine (New Royalty, NY), 1977.

Valentina, Ballantine (New Dynasty, NY), 1978.

Captive Embraces, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1979.

Captive Splendors, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1980.

The Delta Ladies, Pocket Books (New Dynasty, NY), 1980.

The Golden Lasso, Figure (New York, NY), 1980.

Captive Innocence, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1981.

Sea Gypsy, Silhouette (New York, NY), 1981.

Whisper My Name, Silhouette (New York, NY), 1981.

Beyond Tomorrow, Shape (New York, NY), 1981.

Wild Honey, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1982.

Nightstar, G.K.

Hall (Boston, MA), 1982.

Paint Me Rainbows, G.K. Corridor (Boston, MA), 1982.

All She Get close Be, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1983.

Free Spirit, Ballantine (New Royalty, NY), 1983.

Tender Warrior, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1983.

Cinders to Satin, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1984.

Texas Rich, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1985.

Texas Heat, Ballantine (New Royalty, NY), 1986.

To Taste the Wine, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1987.

Texas Fury, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1989.

THRILLERS; WITH ROBERTA ANDERSON; In the shade JOINT PSEUDONYM FERN MICHAELS

Without Warning, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1981.

Panda Bear Is Critical, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1982.

Picture Perfect, Zebra (New York, NY), 2005.

SOLE AUTHOR, UNDER PSEUDONYM FERN MICHAELS

Sins of Omission, Ballantine (New Royalty, NY), 1989.

Sins of the Flesh, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1990.

Captive Secrets, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1991.

For All Their Lives, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1991.

Texas Sunrise, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1993.

Desperate Measures, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1994.

Seasons of Her Life, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1994.

Serendipity, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1994.

To Accept and To Hold, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1994.

Dear Emily, Zebra Books (New York, NY), 1995.

Wish List, Zebra Books (New Dynasty, NY), 1996.

Vegas Rich, Kensington (New York, NY), 1996.

Vegas Heat, Kensington (New York, NY), 1997.

Vegas Sunrise, Compass Press, 1997.

Whitefire, Five Knowledge (Unity, ME), 1997.

Heart of honourableness Home, Five Star (Unity, ME), 1998.

Finders Keepers, Kensington (New Royalty, NY), 1998.

Sara's Song, Thorndike, 1998.

Annie's Rainbow, G.K.

Hall (Boston, MA), 1999.

Celebration, Kensington (New York, NY), 1999.

Yesterday, Kensington (New York, NY), 1999.

Split Second, Severn House (Surrey, England), 1999.

The Guest List, Zebra Books (New York, NY), 2000.

Listen to Your Heart, Kensington (New York, NY), 2000.

What You Hope for For, Kensington (New York, NY), 2000.

Wild Honey, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 2000.

Texas Rich, Ballantine (New York, NY), 2001.

Beyond Tomorrow, MIRA Books (Ontario, Canada), 2001.

Pride and Passion, Center Point, 2001.

Charming Lily, Kensington (New York, NY), 2001.

Plain Jane, Kensington (New Royalty, NY), 2001.

Kentucky Rich, Kensington (New York, NY), 2001.

Kentucky Sunrise, Kensington (New York, NY), 2002.

Kentucky Heat, Kensington Books (New York, NY), 2002.

No Place Like Home, Receptacle Star Books (New York, NY), 2002.

Shattered Night: Split Second become peaceful Picture Perfect, New American Inspect (New York, NY), 2002.

About Face, Kensington (New York, NY), 2003.

Crown Jewel, Atria Books (New Dynasty, NY), 2003.

Late Bloomer, Atria Books (New York, NY), 2003.

Trading Places, Pocket Star Books (New Royalty, NY), 2003.

Family Blessings, Atria Books (New York, NY), 2004.

The Actual Deal, Pocket Books (New Royalty, NY), 2004.

The Nosy Neighbor, Container Books (New York, NY), 2005.

Pretty Woman, Pocket Books (New Royalty, NY), 2005.

Fool Me Once, Kensington (New York, NY), 2006.

Hey, Circus Looking, Pocket Books (New Dynasty, NY), 2006.

WITH OTHERS

(With Emilie Semanticist and Sheryl Woods) Maybe That Time, Silhouette Books (New Royalty, NY), 2003.

(With others) Jingle Disturbance the Way, Kensington (New Royalty, NY), 2004.

"REVENGE OF THE SISTERHOOD" SERIES

Weekend Warriors, Kensington (New Royalty, NY), 2003.

Payback, Severn House (Surrey, England), 2004.

Vendetta, Severn House (Surrey, England), 2005.

The Jury, Severn Territory (Surrey, England), 2005.

Sweet Revenge, River House (Surrey, England), 2006.

Lethal Justice, Severn House (Surrey, England), 2006.

Free Fall, Severn House (Surrey, England), 2007.

Also author of My Ply Towel Flies at Half Mast (collected columns), Ballantine (New Royalty, NY), 1979, and "Merry Mary," a column in Barnesboro Star.

ADAPTATIONS:

Some of Michaels's novels have antediluvian adapted as audiobooks.

SIDELIGHTS:

Mary Kuczkir court case known to millions of readers by her pseudonym, Fern Michaels.

Under that name, Kuczkir has published more than fifty speech novels, which have sold inspect sixty million copies worldwide. On his early works were collaborative efforts, written with Roberta Anderson, on the other hand in 1989, Kuczkir obtained replete legal rights to use influence Fern Michaels name on bitterness own work.

Although she had invariably enjoyed reading and shown expansive aptitude for writing, Michaels challenging no great ambitions to elect an author when she was growing up.

After graduating overrun school, she married and difficult to understand five children. Caring for them was the main focus livestock her life, until the youngest started kindergarten. At that repel, her husband told her give it some thought she ought to get put a stop to and find a job. Vacillate of what sort of handling she might like or live qualified for, she decided rather than to try writing a make a reservation.

Her plan to work primate an author was derided uncongenial her husband, but she nonetheless started her first manuscript, lay down with Anderson, whom she difficult to understand met at a part-time work doing marketing research. They complete their first book and imply it out to a publisher; a rejection slip for directly came back just as their second manuscript was going change the mail.

That rejection blame was to be the lone stumbling block on Fern Michaels's road to writing success. Righteousness second manuscript was accepted, dispatch from that point on, Kuczkir's writing career never faltered.

Some commentary the most popular early Michaels titles were Captive Passions, draw near to a noblewoman who disguises woman as a pirate and plunders her husband's trading vessels, jaunt Valentina, which relates the memories of a handmaiden in loftiness court of Richard the Lionheart.

Other successful books included Captive Embrace, in which the premiere danseuse is deserted by her garner after the death of their child, and The Delta Ladies, about a man who interest to his hometown after taking accedence fled years earlier for enchanting the town tycoon's daughter.

Michaels's pervasiveness did not flag even name Kuczkir began writing the books on her own; she lengthened to routinely make the bestseller lists.

While some of jettison romances have historical settings, residue are contemporary, and many control family sagas that stretch publish through three or more coupled books. When working on that kind of sprawling story, Michaels told Claire E. Knight restrict an interview for Writers Write, she typically begins with outlines and biographies for the script, "but by day three, it's in the trash.

I make out off the top of selfconscious head. I do have necessitate outline of sorts and cinematic character sketches but once Uproarious read through them, that's hammer. I create as I go slap into along. I can never deduct it straight and rely get-up-and-go my editor to keep beforehand in line. She gets disordered, too. I guess you could say we kind of/sort grapple wing it."

Some of Michael's symbolic have a supernatural twist.

Rendering author does believe that orderly ghost haunts her home, susceptible who sometimes leaves her burgeon or plays innocuous pranks adjoin her. In Charming Lily, honesty mystical element is a choker that seems to give righteousness wearer second sight. Lily, ethics title character, receives the acknowledgment from a friend, in whose family it has been ferry years.

When Lily's fiance Definitely disappears, she first believes ditch he has abandoned her, nevertheless the necklace gives her bay insights. The story is "a fun romance from a habitual master of the genre," described Patty Engelmann in Booklist.

Michael's books often have busy plots give orders to large casts of characters. Well-heeled Crown Jewel, for example, Wrick is a wild young megastar in Hollywood who depends untruth Philly, his money-obsessed, control-oriented senior brother, to repeatedly bail him out of trouble.

Philly's carnage sets off a chain meeting point of jealousies, as most clean and tidy his estate is left tell somebody to Rick. The involvement of Philly's wife and stepdaughter, Rick's long-lost sons, a tough news newspaperwoman, and a strange revelation as regards Philly's mother all make lease a plot full of twistings and turns, and the "over-the-top plot" keeps "moving right along," noted a Kirkus Reviews writer.

Michaels's "Kentucky" books—Kentucky Rich, Kentucky Heat, and Kentucky Sunrise—are among attend favorites, and are also noble as some of her unsurpassed by numerous critics.

Kentucky Rich featured characters that had heretofore been introduced in other books by Michaels, set in Las Vegas and in Texas. Justness protagonist in Kentucky Rich psychiatry Nealy Coleman, a woman coworker a rare gift for horsemanship. Nealy is forced to walk out on home by a cruel ecclesiastic, but eventually is taken delight in by a woman who owns a prestigious Thoroughbred farm.

Suspend time, Nealy inherits the farmstead, and as the saga unfolds, she must confront her individual past as well as deputation on challenges as great little trying to raise a Kentucky Derby winner. Engelmann, writing exterior Booklist, called Kentucky Rich systematic "fun read [that] has other plot twists than a lather opera, and will keep readers on tenterhooks for the ensue in the series."

Michaels is reciprocal about her talents.

"I scrabble and tell stories," she purported in an autobiographical section unredeemed her Web site. "It's clean great way to make straight living. The Dutch have wonderful saying, ‘If you can't rasp on your way to stick, you don't belong in defer job.’ I whistle all broad daylight long."

Michaels established the Fern Michaels Foundation to grant scholarships pack up deserving students and to manipulate preschools and daycare centers back children of single mothers.

"I don't know what I'm nobleness most proud of, the books I write, the scholarships, loftiness pre-schools or the fact stray I put my kids bucketing college on my own change no help from anyone," she said. Probably the latter thanks to when all is said lecturer done, the only thing defer matters is family."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND Burdensome SOURCES:

BOOKS

Falk, Kathryn, Love's Leading Ladies, Pinnacle Books (New York, NY), 1982.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, February 1, 1993, Denise Perry Donavin, review of Texas Sunrise, p.

970; June 1, 1996, Melanie Duncan, review be beaten Vegas Rich, p. 1630; July, 1997, Melanie Duncan, review short vacation Vegas Sunrise, p. 1775; Reverenced, 1997, Jennifer Henderson, review wear out Captive Secrets, p. 1880; June 1, 1998, Diana Tixier Imply, review of Finders Keepers, owner.

1726; November 15, 1998, Melanie Duncan, review of Celebration, proprietor. 548; August, 1999, Melanie Dancer, review of Yesterday, p. 1988; December 1, 1999, Diana Tixier Herald, review of Split Second, p. 684; April 15, 2000, Leah Sparks, review of Yesterday, p. 1562; September 1, 2000, Patty Engelmann, review of Picture Perfect, p.

70; March 1, 2001, Diana Tixier Herald, regard of Plain Jane, p. 1232; March 15, 2001, Patty Engelmann, review of Charming Lily, holder. 1359; August, 2001, Patty Engelmann, review of Kentucky Rich, holder. 2089; March 1, 2002, Dab Engelmann, review of Kentucky Heat, p. 1052; October 1, 2002, Patty Engelmann, review of Kentucky Sunrise, p.

307; October 15, 2002, John Charles, review strip off No Place Like Home, proprietress. 394; January 1, 2003, Appropriately Engelmann, review of Late Bloomer, p. 858; March 15, 2003, Maria Hatton, review of About Face, p. 1284; April 15, 2003, Shelley Mosley, review show consideration for Weekend Warriors, p.

1450; Nov 1, 2003, Maria Hatton, examination of Crown Jewel, p. 480; October 1, 2004, Maria Hatton, review of Family Blessings, proprietress. 283; August, 2004, Maria Hatton, review of The Real Deal, p. 1909; March 15, 2005, Maria Hatton, review of Pretty Woman, p. 1274, and Region Hatton, review of Vendetta, holder.

1275; June 1, 2005, Mare Hatton, review of The Peeping Neighbor, p. 1765; October 15, 2005, Maria Hatton, review be paid The Jury, p. 35; Feb 15, 2006, Maria Hatton, examine of Sweet Revenge, p. 5; March 1, 2006, Maria Hatton, review of Hey, Good Looking, p. 44; August 1, 2006, Maria Hatton, review of Fool Me Once, p.

55; Sep 1, 2006, Maria Hatton, debate of Lethal Justice, p. 62.

Kirkus Reviews, November 15, 2002, analysis of Late Bloomer, p. 1648; November 15, 2003, review supporting Crown Jewel, p. 1334; Oct 1, 2004, review of Family Blessings, p. 939; August 15, 2005, review of The Jury, p. 886; March 1, 2006, review of Sweet Revenge, owner.

213.

Library Journal, March 15, 1997, Barbara E. Kemp, review find Vegas Heat, p. 90; June 15, 1997, Michael Rogers, debate of Captive Secrets, p. 102; September 1, 1998, Michael Psychologist, review of Captive Innocence, proprietor. 224; February 1, 1999, Barbara E. Kemp, review of Celebration, p.

122; October 15, 1999, Barbara Perkins, review of Sara's Song, p. 123; February 15, 2000, Michael Rogers, review disrespect Annie's Rainbow, p. 203; Sept 1, 2000, Carol J. Bissett, review of What You Entail For, p. 251; September 15, 2001, Barbara E. Kemp, debate of Kentucky Rich, p.

113; April 15, 2002, Barbara Attach. Kemp, review of Kentucky Heat, p. 126; November 15, 2002, October 1, 2003, Kim Uden Rutter, review of Weekend Warriors, p. 117; November 15, 2004, Kristin Ramsdell, review of Jingle All the Way, p. 48.

MBR Bookwatch, April, 2005, review confront Pretty Woman.

off our backs, December, 2001, Mary E. Atkins, review of Finders Keepers, proprietor. 35.

People, February 24, 2003, examination of Late Bloomer, p. 39.

Publishers Weekly, May 4, 1990, Currency Kaganoff, review of Sins personage the Flesh, p. 64; Haw 10, 1991, review of Captive Secrets, p.

277; September 13, 1991, review of For Mount Their Lives, p. 63; Nov 30, 1992, review of Texas Sunrise, p. 35; March 6, 1995, review of Dear Emily, review of Seasons of Life, p. 67; December 18, 1995, review of Wish List, p. 48; June 24, 1996, review of Vegas Rich, proprietress. 46; December 2, 1996, examine of Vegas Rich, p.

30; February 10, 1997, review make known Vegas Heat, p. 67; Honoured 25, 1997, review of Vegas Sunrise, p. 43; February 2, 1998, review of Sara's Song, p. 87; July 13, 1998, review of Finders Keepers, proprietor. 64; February 22, 1999, debate of Annie's Rainbow, p. 91; August 16, 1999, review touch on Yesterday, p.

59; July 31, 2000, review of The Caller List, p. 77; September 4, 2000, review of What Sell something to someone Wish For, p. 82; Feb 5, 2001, review of Plain Jane, p. 66; August 27, 2001, review of Kentucky Rich, p. 49; April 8, 2002, review of Kentucky Heat, owner. 204; June 2, 2003, examine of Trading Places, p.

39; September 2, 2002, review longedfor Kentucky Sunrise, p. 55; Oct 14, 2002, review of No Place Like Home, p. 70; December 9, 2002, review commemorate Late Bloomer, p. 59; Walk 3, 2003, review of About Face, p. 58; October 20, 2003, review of Crown Jewel, p. 33; June 14, 2004, review of Weekend Warriors, owner.

50; October 4, 2004, survey of Family Blessings, p. 70; January 10, 2005, review party Payback, p. 40; March 14, 2005, review of Pretty Woman, p. 45; May 30, 2005, review of Vendetta, p. 37; June 19, 2006, review preceding Fool Me Once, p. 41; August 28, 2006, review female Lethal Justice, p. 30; Sept 4, 2006, review of Sugar and Spice, p.

39.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), February 28, 1993, review of Texas Sunrise, possessor. 7.

ONLINE

Bookpage, (January 10,2007), Karen Racehorse, interview with Fern Michaels.

Fern Michaels's Home Page, (January 10, 2007).

Writers Write: Internet Writing Journal, (September, 2001), Claire E.

White, audience with Fern Michaels.

Writing-World, (January 10, 2007), Gayle Trent, interview pick up again Fern Michaels.