About Rena Marks:

Why I started writing:

I devoured books for as long as I can remember. What is it in some of us that we can't get enough to read? I remember reading the back of shampoo bottles while in the shower, the back of cereal boxes while I had breakfast, and the back of tampon boxes while I waited for puberty to hit.

I finally slowed down my reading when I got married and became a mom. With two babies in diapers and a full time job, there was just no time. But, there was always something "missing."

One day, I discovered books on audio cassette. Driving 35 to 45 minutes to work meant that someone could read a story to me! The bliss was back.

What's your favorite genre?

During one of these reads was a Janet Evanovich, One for the Money, Stephanie Plum series. I drove round and round to finish it before getting home. Circling my block, like an idiot.

I logged onto her website, and quickly found the rest of the books. She was all the way up to ten!

I bought all ten, and it would be another year before Eleven on Top. In that depressed state you get into when your book-world was so wonderful you don't want to leave, I logged back onto her website and saw a posting from another person. "I discovered an author just like Janet," she gushed. "Her name is Laurell K. Hamilton."

The days of the Internet. I googled Laurell k Hamilton, and it was the coolest website I've ever seen. A graveyard with bats flying around, and you click on the tombstones for each book.

But I was a little confused. How could this author be just like Janet? Laurell K Hamilton wrote about.vampires. Could that be right? I've read Stephen King, and Dean Koontz, but had to put horror down when I had actual babies. Because there's that little niggling fear about going into labor and delivering rats instead.

But desperate, I went to the bookstore and bought the whole thing. Ten paperback books and .holy cow.

I was lost in the world of paranormal. I loved the paranormal world with a passion that equaled the way Janet can make me laugh.

I finished those books, and logged back on. There were mentions of other paranormal authors, and I devoured Charlaine Harris, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Katie Macalister and Mary Janice Davidson, Kelley Armstrong, and Jim Butcher. Now what?

I waited and waited for another paranormal from someone to be released, and then decided, why wait? I'll write my own for someone else out there who's just as desperate as I. I wrote and wrote, and then discovered an unknown author named Kim Harrison.

But more exciting was a comment page by Kim Harrison, in which you could speak to her directly. How do I start writing? Someone asked.

"Join an organization like Romance Writers of America," she wrote back.

And I was on the way.