As a child, Amy Frazier devoured fairy tales and myths in which heroes and heroines found themselves transported from the ordinary to the extraordinary. Amy was, in reality, a timid child, but within the realm of a story she could test the limits of "what if..." She could experience vicarious adventure, danger, loss and redemption, and in the process begin to form a sense of self. She wrote her first "book" as an eight-year-old, sitting in her aunt's apple tree one summer. The tale, written in pencil on a stapled stack of papers small enough to fit in a wallet, was a space odyssey starring herself, of course. As an adult, she came to understand that myth is a story of more than true, and she freely utilized the elements of those early tales in her successive careers as teacher, librarian, freelance artist and professional storyteller. Born on the Maine coast, a descendent of French Acadians expelled from English Nova Scotia (one of her aunts was named Evangeline), Amy now resides in Georgia. The South, she says with great pleasure, is a region where everyday conversation is often elevated to the art of storytelling, where tales, both real and fantastic, waft on the air with the scent of honeysuckle. In this charged atmosphere, she couldn't avoid writing and began her first romance in 1992. Her books are upbeat, down-home stories of domestic drama, of everyday people faced with unusual circumstances. She sees romance as a chance to highlight strong women, heroic men and committed relationships. Amy draws sustenance and inspiration from a variety of sources, chief of which are her husband, her son, her daughter and her two neurotic cats. A dedicated reader, she consumes the printed word from cereal boxes to Pulitzer Prize winners. She enjoys nature in all forms, but especially loves the bird sanctuary (tell that to the squirrels and chipmunks!) she's established in the wooded area just outside her office window. When she ventures out, it's often in the company of the Fabulous Hat Ladies, a group of women of all ages who believe civilization would take a turn for the better if more women wore elegant hats. (Her not-so-secret fetish used to be shoes, but the hats now outnumber the shoes in her closet by an easy two-to-one.) If she could choose a personal motto, Amy would like it to be, "I dwell in possibility."
