Author·Not on Booklabria yet

Debra Dier

Book data and covers from Open Library (openlibrary.org). See this author on Open Library(opens openlibrary.org)

Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. The first time I saw a reader mention my possible demise in an online review, chills rippled over my skin. It is odd to read someone say she loves you and she thinks you must have died because nothing new has been published in years. To that reader and to anyone else who may have mourned my passing I say: I have been buried in all the wonderful joys and duties and responsibilities of motherhood. Yes, other writers manage to keep pumping out books while dealing with children. I think I may have continued, except I had the loss of my mom hit right at the time I was finishing the last book on my contract. I just couldn't find the heart to pick up my quill. Instead, I plunged into volunteer work. Once I left that realm where the written word reigned, I never sought a way back into it. I was Alice who forgot about the looking glass. My best friend gave me a magnet a couple of years ago that had “Stop me before I volunteer again!” emblazoned across the shiny surface beneath the face of a young woman who resembled me. She told me she was tired of waiting for another book. I realized my short hiatus from writing had turned into a twelve year sabbatical. I stepped back into my office, looked at my computer and decided she was right. I sat down and began writing the first book in a series of fantasy novels for older teens and adults. While I was working on the new series, I obtained the rights to all of my previously published novels. The next day a New York publisher contacted me and asked to buy the rights to those novels. They wanted to publish them immediately. It was tempting, but instead of allowing those books to be published in their original form, I decided to take a peek at them and see if there was anything I might do differently today. I was always the type of writer who would have been revising in the bookstore if bookstores did not frown upon such tactics. The first book, Beyond Forever, took eight months to r