C J Carmichael

Stories fascinate C.J. Carmichael -- they always have. When she was growing up, her relatives almost never saw her without a book in her hands. Even now that she's busy with her career, a husband, teenaged children, pets, writing groups, relatives, fitness and friends, she reads an awful lot. C.J. reads when she eats (a no-no, she admits), in the bath (leads to soggy pages), and always, always, always in airplanes (C.J.'s a nervous flier). She even reads while driving (thank goodness for books on tape).

Despite her love of fiction, when it came time to pick a direction for her studies in university, C.J. chose business. She ended up with a degree in commerce, which she followed with two years of articling and several more exams, in order to become a chartered accountant. She worked in this field for about six years, and while she enjoyed her job, she had a secret yearning for something else.

When C.J. had her first child, she finally had an opportunity to step back from what she was doing and re-assess what she wanted from life. She decided she wanted to be a hands-on mom. She also wanted to write books. And so C.J. tried.

She typed her first book on an electric typewriter, and sent it to Harlequin Enterprises with great expectations. She had so much to learn! The books she had enjoyed since her teen years seemed so structurally simple, but she soon realized that achieving this effect requires great skill and talent. Hoping she had the talent, C.J. worked on acquiring the skills and ten years later (yes, it really did take that long!) she sold her first book to the Harlequin Superromance line.

Writing about ordinary people, in extraordinary situations -- that's the kind of story C.J. loves to read and it's the kind of story she writes, as well. Whether you're a mom with kids, a single career woman, divorced, retired, young, old (or any combination of the above!) she wants you to feel as if you are reading about something that could happen to you in your real life (or to your daughter, or mother, or best friend).