Spotlight on Michele Dunaway
(Published in 2002)

By Cheryl Bolen

When Michele Dunaway attended her five-year high school reunion in 1988, she made a vow to be published by the year 2000. She beat her goal by selling her first book (Taming the Tabloid Heiress) to Harlequin Romance in 1999.

Michele's apprenticeship in romance writing was shorter than most. She didn't join RWA until the year before she got The Call, and she sold her first book. She doesn't even meet with a critique group on a regular basis. However, she has been writing all her life.

Michele attributes that first sale to an editor meeting at the Chicago RWA convention in 1999. Her editor is Patience Smith, out of the New York Harlequin/Silhouette office.

In the years between high school graduation and making her first sale, Michele earned a bachelor's degree in education and a master's in media communication, and she launched a satisfying career as a high school English teacher in Missouri.

Despite having five sales under her belt now (the fifth still untitled and unscheduled), Michele has no plans to give up her teaching career.

As a single mother of two small girls, she needs the "phenomenal" health insurance, but more importantly, "I really love teaching," she said. "I say that being around teenagers all day keeps me young."

Instead of dating, she said she spends her weekends staying at home writing romance novels. "I'm still waiting for one of my heroes to knock on my door."

She admits scheduling time for writing is tough. She crams most of her writing into the weekends, and when she is on a deadline finds herself writing into the wee hours of the morning, getting by on three or four hours of sleep.

This time last year Michele was planning to move to Houston. She joined our chapter of RWA and even bought a house in Houston. "All my exes (one) live in Texas," she said jokingly.

Instead of living in Houston, she now owns five hilly acres in Labadie, Missouri.

This month her The Simply Scandalous Princess, another Harlequin Romance, will be published. It is in the Carradignes American Royalty continuity series. In July her Catching the Corporate Playboy will be published.

Her fifth release is set in Houston. Michele said she can't wait to meet chapter members in Denver this summer.