Deirdre Martin Deirdre was six when she wrote her first "book", a Peanuts parody. In addition to penning bad, maudlin poetry in junior high school and serving as the Arts Editor on her high school newspaper, she was also the Arts Editor at her college newspaper at the University of New York at Buffalo, where she earned her BA in English in 1985. While writing for the student newspaper there, she also sold her first freelance magazine article and won a city wide play writing contest. The play, Spin Cycle, about two lonely people at a laundromat, was subsequently performed in a theater space in downtown Buffalo. Ater graduating college, Deirdre worked at a series of trade magazines before landing a job at Soap Opera Digest. While she says it was fun working in a place where you got to watch TV all afternoon, she longed to branch out, and after two years, left to begin freelancing full time. Over the course of her twelve year freelance career, her work appeared in a wide variety of publications, including Seventeen, YlI1, McCall's, Fitness, New Woman, Bride's, Bridal Guide, Inside Sports, Woman's World, Modern Maturity, Islands, Newsday, and the New York Times. In 1998, her first , non fiction book was published: Investing for Retirement (Avon). She also contributed to Lifescripts for Managers, Lifescripts for Employees, and Lifescripts for the Self Employed. (MacMillan, 1999). A fan of the romance genre and of soap opera ( "If Dickens were alive today, he'd be writing for a soap," Deirdre maintains), she decided to try her own hand at writing a romance novel. The result, BODY CHECK, was published in March, 2003, followed by FAIR PLAY in 2004, TOTAL RUSH in 2005, and THE PENALTY BOX in 2006. Her next novel, CHASING STANLEY, will be published in 2007, heralding a return to her "New York Blades" series, featuring the sexy the hockey heroes her readers have come to know and love. In fact, as of December, 2006, the Blades will have their own website: www.nyblades.com. Both FAIR PLAY and THE PENALTY BOX made it on to the USA Today Bestseller List. A resident of Ithaca, NY, Deirdre enjoys hiking and biking with her husband, Mark Levine, co author of the financial bestsellers, Die Broke and Live Rich. When not busy lavishing affection on her beloved Newfoundlands, Winston and Rocky, she enjoys reading, baking, listening to music, yoga, and photography. She's had the same best friend since she was ten and adores the color purple. Check out Deirdre's video, A Romance Writer Tells All, at YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAeT4Il7V2U |
