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January's Featured Author: 
Maria Monroe

1) Your Journey as an Author…..I've been a writer my whole life. I have blank journals I filled with my own poems when I was probably about five or six. I was the weirdo kid who got excited when teachers assigned essays, and I quickly learned to keep my mouth shut and pretend to hate them as much as everyone else did! In high school, I took my first Creative Writing class, and I loved it so much. I wrote a play that was submitted to a Chicago-wide contest, and when I won my play was produced in a theater with real actors. The joy of sharing my work with others was incredible. I lost touch with my "writing self" in college, where I majored in Accounting because I knew it would get me a job. And it did. But a few years later, I quit to get  my Master's degree in writing at the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop. It's a phenomenal program, and I  met and learned from some of the very best writers out there. For years, though, I struggled to write. Now, when I reflect back, I wasn't enjoying it. Maybe I was taking myself too seriously. I'm not sure. A couple years ago, a friend, who's also a writer, encouraged me to write a romance novel for National Novel Writing Month. I've always enjoyed reading romance, and my "serious" novels always had sexy parts in them. And they were my favorite parts to write. So I tried it. And I never looked back!

2) What reading means to you.....Reading is the one activity that, throughout my entire life, has consistently brought me pleasure. Obviously the books I read have changed since I was a kid, but the feeling of excitement I get when I begin a brand new book hasn't. 

3) Whats next for you.....My latest book is called AFTERGLOW, and it's a post-apocalyptic love story about Nina and Creed, who agree to travel together after they have a vicious fight. It's really hot! And exciting. I wrote it because of the notion that you should write the book you want to read. I love apocalypse fiction, and I love romance. So I decided to combine the two. I don't have a release date yet, but it won't be long!

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