ORWA Member

Maureen Fisher

author@booksbymaureen.com
www.booksbymaureen.com

Born in Scotland, I emigrated to Canada, kicking and screaming, at the tender age of seven. Years later as a University of Toronto graduate, I convinced the federal government to hire a Fine Arts specialist as a computer programmer. After three years of bits, bytes, and dumps (probably not what you are thinking), I graduated again, this time to full-time homemaker and mom, raising two wonderful sons. Plunging back into the business world, my second husband and I started a management consulting company. This marriage survived because my husband and I pledged never to work on the same project again. Ever.

After a century in the consulting world, I grew weary of wearing snappy power suits, squeezing into panty hose, and fighting rush hour traffic. I made a life-changing decision. I wanted to write books. Not dry, boring, technical treatises, but fresh, funny romantic suspense novels. How hard could it be? Thousands of authors did it every year.

Always an over-achiever, I quit my day job, attended a one-week seminar on writing a novel, read a couple of how-to books, joined the Ottawa chapter of RWA, and plunged right in. Learning can be a humbling experience. Turns out I made every beginner’s mistake in the book. I persevered, I slaved, I revised, I learned. After twenty-five rejections, countless workshops, six-re-writes, and two first-prize wins, my efforts finally paid off with the sale of my first book, a paranormal romantic suspense entitled THE JAGUAR LEGACY.

Between travelling, my husband and I live in Ottawa where I volunteer for an addiction family program, play bridge, bicycle, read, and slave over my computer to improve my writing skills.