I only had a couple days to the deadline, but I quickly wrote a story and sent it off.

In high school I heard about a short story contest for a teen magazine called Sassy. What was the first piece of writing you did that you remember being happy with? The dog and the ladybug were, inexplicably, the same size.

I titled it, “Fear Itself,” as in, sometimes our own brains are what trip us up.īefore that, when I was about nine, I wrote and illustrated a children’s book about a ladybug with heart-shaped spots who was friends with a dog. In the story, the protagonist scares herself so much that as she runs away from an imagined threat, she slips and falls down the stairs of the junior high school, maiming herself. There wasn’t, but the whole mile-plus walk home, I wrote the story in my mind and then quickly wrote it out long hand when I got my hands on pen and paper.

One day after volleyball practice, I was seemingly the last person in the school, and as I clicked through the empty halls I realized my imagination was scaring me-I decided there might be a murderous janitor on the loose, and I was in deep trouble. When I was in junior high, I was heavily influenced first by Judy Blume and then Stephen King. What was the first story you ever wrote about? Theresa was named the Colorado Romance Writer of the Year in 2004. A graduate of the University of Iowa and the University of Colorado at Boulder, Theresa lives in Denver, Colorado.īe sure to connect with Theresa on Twitter or on Facebook! Her work has also appeared in the anthologies I Shaved My Legs for This?! and Sex and the Single Witch. She is the author of six additional Kensington novels, including Spur of the Moment, The Girls’ Global Guide to Guys, Girls Who Gossip, Getting Married, Spa Vacation, and The Dangers of Mistletoe. Theresa Alan became a bestselling author with her first novel, Who You Know (2003), and her novella Santa Unwrapped was in the New York Times bestseller Jingle All the Way (2004). Today, I am so pleased to have author Theresa Alan stop by Grab the Lapels! I first discovered Theresa before I had a driver’s license. I had been reading (way too much…okay, maybe all of) Sweet Valley Twins, so one day I went up to the mysterious third floor in my library, I remember running my hand over the spines of the books and finding Theresa’s book Spur of the Moment. I was immediately captivated by the characters and loved the overall tone of the book.

Spa Vacation by Theresa Alan