Nora Roberts

Nora Roberts (born Eleanor Marie Robertson on October 10, 1950) is an American author of over 225 romance novels.

She writes as J. D. Robb, Jill March and (in the U.K.) '''Sarah Hardesty'

Roberts was born on October 10, 1950, in Silver Spring, Maryland, the youngest of five children.

Her parents have Irish ancestry, and she has described herself as "an Irishwoman through and through".

Her family were avid readers, so books were always important in her life.

Although she had always made up stories in her head, Roberts did not write as a child, other than essays for school.

She does claim to have "told lies. Really good ones—some of which my mother still believes."

She credits the nuns at her Catholic school for instilling in her a sense of discipline.

During her second year in high school, Roberts transferred to Montgomery Blair High School, where she met her first husband, Ronald Aufdem-Brinke.

They married, against her parents' wishes, in 1968, as soon as she graduated, and settled in Boonsboro.

Roberts' husband worked at his father's sheet-metal business before joining her parents in their lighting company.

She gave birth to two sons, Dan and Jason.

Roberts would later refer to this time period as her "Earth Mother" years, when she did crafts, including ceramics and sewing her children's clothes.

She began to write during a blizzard in February 1979.

Roberts states that with three feet of snow, a dwindling supply of chocolate, and no morning kindergarten for her two boys, she had little else to do.

She fell in love with the writing process, and quickly produced six manuscripts which she submitted to Harlequin, the leading publisher of romance novels, but was repeatedly rejected.

Roberts says,

"I got the standard rejection for the first couple of tries, then my favorite rejection of all time. I received my manuscript back with a nice little note which said that my work showed promise, and the story had been very entertaining and well done. But that they already had their American writer. That would have been Janet Dailey."

Dailey would go on to be embroiled in a plagiarism scandal in which she eventually confessed to stealing some of Roberts' work.

Roberts once stated: "You're going to be unemployed if you really think you just have to sit around and wait for the muse to land on your shoulder."

She concentrates on one novel at a time, writing eight hours a day, every day, even while on vacation.

Rather than begin with an outline, Roberts instead envisions a key incident, character, or setting.

She then writes a short first draft that has the basic elements of a story.

Roberts then goes back to the beginning of the novel.

The second draft usually sees the addition of details, the "texture and color" of the work, as well as a more in-depth study of the characters.

She then does a final pass to polish the novel before sending it to her agent, Amy Berkower.

She often writes trilogies, finishing the three books in a row so that she can remain with the same characters.

In the past, her trilogies were all released in paperback, as Roberts believed the wait for hardcover editions was too long for the reader.

All her new publications are released in hardcover first and e-book, with paperback editions following.

Roberts does much of her research over the Internet, as she has an aversion to flying.

In 1980, a new publisher, Silhouette Books, formed to take advantage of the manuscripts from the American writers that Harlequin had rejected.

Roberts' first novel, Irish Thoroughbred, was published in 1981, using the pseudonym Nora Roberts, a shortened form of her birth name Eleanor Marie Robertson because she assumed that all romance authors had pen names.

Between 1982 and 1984, Roberts wrote 23 novels for Silhouette, published under various Silhouette imprints: Silhouette Sensation, Silhouette Special Edition and Silhouette Desire, as well as Silhouette Intrigue, and MIRA's reissue program.

The couple divorced in 1983.

Roberts met her second husband, Bruce Wilder, a carpenter, when she hired him to build bookshelves in July 1985.

Her husband owns Turn the Page Books bookstore in Boonsboro, Maryland, and works as an adult content photographer and videographer.

The couple also owned the nearby historic Boone Hotel.

In 1985, Playing the Odds, the first novel in the MacGregor family series, was published and was an immediate bestseller.

After it was destroyed by a fire in February 2008, it was restored and reopened as the Inn BoonsBoro in 2009; the suites were inspired by and named for literary romantic couples with happy endings.

She is an ardent baseball fan, having been honored by the local minor league baseball team Hagerstown Suns several times.