Thom Racina

In the 19 years between Blizzard and Snow Angel, Thom gave the world over 4,000 broadcast hours of General Hospital, Days of Our Lives, Another World, Santa Barbara, Generations & Search for Tomorrow, besides writing for the much-acclaimed nighttime series, Family. As Head Writer for the soaps, he received 5 Emmy nominations, one specifically for Luke & Laura's wedding on GH, the single highest-rated episode in daytime history. He also worked in Hamburg and Toronto writing Family Passions, a Canadian/German production. Of his years writing serials, he says, "It was a treadmill, but so much fun to play God."

A small (but enjoyable) claim to (someone else's) fame is the fact that Thom gave Brad Pitt, his roommate for two years, his first acting job on one of the soaps. The producers thought he "had no talent" and fired him, which probably turned out to be a blessing.

His career before Blizzard is more controversial. To put himself through college-he graduated from Chicago's famed Goodman School of Drama at the Art Institute with an MFA in Theatre Arts and Directing-he wrote books he wouldn't put his name on. Westerns, romances, porn, whatever the publisher needed that weekend. He graduated to mainstream publishing with a take-off on The Happy Hooker called The Happy Hustler (Warner Books), which he invented in a weekend, and sold three million copies, spawning three sequels. He then ghost-wrote three books for Xaviera Hollander (The Happy Hooker), made up life stories for Ivory Soap girl-turned-porn-star Marilyn Chambers and Fanne Fox (Wilbur Mills and the Tidal Basin), and turned out 25 novelizations of TV shows and major motion pictures. He has been published by Warner, Dell, NAL, Berkeley, Ace, Putnam and Penguin. In total, he authored 157 books before his breakthrough success with Blizzard.

Next to books, theatre and music are Thom's passion, and he's authored several musicals for children: Allison Wonderland, the Alice story retold as she falls into a television set (with a new version just produced as Allison Webland), The Marvelous Misadventure of Sherlock Holmes, and a contemporary musical version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. All three plays are published by Samuel French, Inc. and are performed all over the world.

Thom Racina hails from Kenosha, Wisconsin, went to school in Albuquerque and Chicago, where he got a MFA in Theatre Arts and Directing, lived in Los Angeles for 25 years, but now makes his home in Palm Springs, California. He's an accomplished pianist, addicted to Peets Coffee, loves to travel and is happiest when he's on an airplane ("My middle name is TWA, as you can probably tell from my books.")