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Welcome to our New Faces column, where you can meet brand-new romance authors and find out about their books. This time we're visiting with Ellen Henderson, whose first release is Ultra Violet from Silhouette Bombshell. Ellen, welcome back to TRR! Tell us about yourself. Well, the blurb on the back of my book says I can handle a shotgun, ride a motorcycle, and scuba dive with sharks. This is all true. But it doesn't exactly describe my daily life, which involves more watching of television than handling of firearms. It's a good life, though. I'm a native Texan, and I've spent most of my life in the Dallas area, where I live now. I went to college in Austin (a city I love and miss terribly) at a little school called St. Edward's University, where I got a literature degree. I have a great husband, two completely spoiled cats, and a wonderful network of friends and family. Are you coming to romance writing from another job? Yes, and I'm not giving it up! Being paid to write novels is a thrill and a half, but I still like my day job, where I'm an editor for the Web site of The Dallas Morning News. I'm responsible for a product I'm really proud of, and I get to read and write about arts and entertainment, which I'm obsessed with anyway, so it's a great place for me. What led you to write romance? I always wanted to write books; I mean, even as a kid. But I seriously had no idea how to start. Someone told me that to learn to write I should read a lot, which... thanks for the tip, but I'd been "reading a lot" since my See Spot Run days, and I still had no clue about how to structure a plot. I tried my hand at writing romance because I thought it seemed like a manageable genre - at the very least, I knew how the darn thing was supposed to end, so the rest of the plot should be no big problem. Laughing yet? Yeah, that didn't work out. But the great thing about deciding to write romance was that I had a great excuse for reading a lot of romance, and in those days - my snobby Lit major days - I needed an excuse. But a wide exposure to the genre cured me of the snobbishness, and I fell in love with books about love. Then a really great thing happened - I found TheRomanceReader.com and realized there was a whole community of romance readers out there who could steer me toward great reads. After a while, I even tried my hand at reviewing for TRR; reading and analyzing all those books was a fantastic education. I had to leave reviewing behind in 2000 (crazy-busy life got in the way), but it's an experience I'll never forget. Tell us about your road to publication. I've been writing for about eight years, in fits and starts - I have a little self-discipline problem, and plus I was flailing around so cluelessly so much of the time that it was hard to make a lot of progress. But I'd finished some manuscripts and done the whole submit-a-proposal-and-get-immediately-rejected thing a time or two. Then two major things changed for me: I found a great online workshop/critique group (they're called the Cherries), and I found a story that wouldn't let me go. I spent about a year soaking up intensely helpful craft knowledge, then I started noodling around with that story I couldn't forget, and the next thing you know, I was writing a book without a net. This was unlike anything I'd written before, in that I had no idea how it was going to end, how long it might be, or who in heck might ever want to buy it. But I just didn't worry about any of it - I plunged in and wrote my little heart out. Somewhere in the middle of all that, Silhouette introduced its new Bombshell line, and I swear I felt a little tug of destiny. But I kept my head down, kept writing, and tried not to get my hopes up. But you'd better believe when I finished the thing I shipped a proposal to Bombshell pretty darn quick. After a few weeks, I got a request for the full manuscript - a thrill in itself for me, since I'd never gotten that far before. And a few months after that, I got a revision request, so it was back to working my heart out to make the book better. And then a few months after that, I got The Call and I sold the book. What kind of research was involved for your first book? Re… Resea… what's that word? Sorry, I'm not familiar with it. Seriously, I am the least enthusiastic researcher you can imagine. I just don't enjoy it, so I've got it down to a brutally efficient, super-targeted science. I have a specific question, I find the specific answer, and I'm out. What I do tend to do is incorporate things I've learned randomly - it's amazing how seemingly disconnected bits of learning will spark ideas. For instance, while I was writing ULTRA VIOLET, I happened to read (just for fun) a nonfiction book about the great flu epidemic of 1918. (It sounds like fun, doesn't it? It actually is a fascinating read.) Anyway, that book had a very clear and interesting explanation of how viruses work, and I ended up using that as a framework for some of the science in ULTRA VIOLET. Tell us about your debut book. ULTRA VIOLET is about a regular gal, Violet, who gets genetically mutated and winds up with superpowers. Which might be pretty cool, except that there are these people who seem to be trying to kill her, and her heart might explode, and she really just wants to go back to her normal life. But there's someone who needs saving even more than Vi, and there's also this really hot guy... Who are your influences as a writer? In the romance-related world, Jennifer Crusie and Patricia Gaffney are my heroes - very different writers who both produce such excellent and powerful books. I also love Susan Elizabeth Phillips (who doesn't, really?), Loretta Chase, Janet Evanovich, lots of others. Outside of romance, I think Joss Whedon (of Buffy, Angel, Firefly and now Serenity fame) is a writing god. I also adore the Harry Potter books with an unreserved abandon I haven't felt since childhood, and I love Robert Heinlein, Stephen King, Marian Keyes, Jane Austen, oh, too many to name. I'm into some nonfiction, too, including essays by the hilarious David Sedaris and the sharp and witty Sarah Vowell. What does your family think of having a published romance author in their midst? It's weird; nobody in my family reads romance or really gets what the romance world is all about, but every single one of them has been incredibly supportive. Many of them have read the book in manuscript form (my poor husband, who helps me with plot ideas and sticky problems, read it about seventeen times in manuscript form), and all of them have been oh-so complimentary about it, and just generally proud of me and thrilled for me. I'm really lucky to have such a great extended family. Tell us about plans for future books. This book came out so soon after I sold it that I haven't finished the next one yet! I plan to write more books about Violet and other characters featured in ULTRA VIOLET, but right now I'm working on a book I'm tentatively calling THE BAD GIRL. It's about a computer genius heroine who has to use all her former juvenile delinquent tricks to save her best friend. How can readers get in touch with you? I would love to hear from readers! I have a Web site: www.ellenhenderson.com, and I can be e-mailed at ellen@ellenhenderson.com. Ellen, thanks for joining us, and best of luck! Readers, we have a review of ULTRA VIOLET on our Category page. |