Homecoming

This New York Times bestselling author has a passion for romance that stems from her passion for the other joys in her life — her family, animals, and historic homes. She is usually found in New Jersey or South Carolina, where she is either tapping out stories on her computer or completing some kind of historical restoration. Legions of fans around the world thrill to the romantic stories Ms. Michaels creates in every one of her novels.

Janet Dailey's first book -- a Harlequin romance -- was published in 1976. In the twenty years since, she has written 89 more novels and become the third largest selling female author in the world, with 300 million copies of her books sold in 19 languages in 98 countries. Her most recent bestsellers, Masquerade, Rivals, and Heiress, have all sold more than one million copies each. She is known for her strong, decisive characters, her extraordinary ability to re-create a time and place, and her unerring courage to confront important, controversial issues, like alcoholism and sexual abuse, in her stories.

All of her novels are meticulously researched, an endeavor she shares with her husband, Bill Dailey. The couple met in 1963, when Janet worked as a secretary for the construction company Bill owned. The two travel extensively to scout story locations, and have visited all 50 states; these days, they are likely to fly, but miss the time when they drove cross country, a trailer attached to their car. Janet Dailey also reads voraciously about every aspect of any subject she writes about; as she remarks, ""Accuracy is important in genre fiction; you have to get it right, zero in on the real details. That's the way to make writing come alive and not irritate the readers with carelessness.""

When they are not traveling, the couple spend time at their home on the shore of Lake Taneycomo in Branson, Missouri. It is the part of the country Dailey loves best, partly because, she says, ""The people around me are more interested in their problems and their lives, and that sort of keeps me in touch with reality. They think it's nice that I write, but they really couldn't care less.""

Allison Janney has been featured on Broadway (Present Laughter), in films (Big Night and First Wives Club) and on television shows on all four networks.

Sharon Sala is a member of RWA and OKRWA with 115 books in Young Adult, Western, Fiction, Women's Fiction, and non-fiction. RITA finalist 8 times, won Janet Dailey Award, Career Achievement winner from RT Magazine 5 times, Winner of the National Reader's Choice Award 5 times, winner of the Colorado Romance Writer's Award 5 times, Heart of Excellence award, Booksellers Best Award. Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award. Centennial Award for 100th published novel.

Deborah Bedford was born in Texas and earned her degree in journalism and marketing from Texas A&M University. For her birthday in the summer of 1984, her husband, Jack, bought her a copy of the 1984 Writers' Market, and she began to meticulously send letters to every publisher listed in the book. Rejection letters flowed back by the handfuls. She has a large folder where, for posterity's sake, she has kept these to this day.
BR>When Deborah's first book, Touch the Sky, was released by the Harlequin Superromance line, its sales topped every Harlequin record for a first-time author. It earned rave reviews and a Romantic TimesReviewer's Choice award.

During the next seven years, Deborah published six more books for the Harlequin Superromance series and a historical novel, Blessing, before signing a contract with HarperCollins Publishers. This paved the way for her to move on to write mass-market mainstream women's fiction, where her work garnered numerous awards and appeared on the USA TODAY bestseller list.

The word Deborah uses to describe her career is "beguiling." Whenever she wrote words about Jesus or God in her stories, those spiritual overtones were never touched, edited or omitted. But, along with those words, Deborah admits that she was writing steamy scenes. "I wanted all the reward that the world would give me," she says. "I wanted all the fame, and all the status. But I realized that I was giving away lentils in the Lord's battlefield. That's when I became convicted. The time had come for a change."

"I am writing with the joy of a new love," Deborah says. "My journey to writing for the Lord has been not so much a decision but a beautiful process of being picked up and carried over. This is only the beginning. Where I thought constraints would box me in as a writer, where I thought I might have to make my stories smaller to fit into a Christian mold, the opposite has proven true. I am seeing, in my writing, that these stories must be written big, in the same transparent way that our lives must be lived as Christians. To gloss over problems we have, to make things seem easier than they are, is to gloss over the power of what our loving Heavenly Father can do."