As a young boy I was taken care of by my paternal grandmother and she would tell me about her past. She never just remembered. She would turn whatever it was she was telling me about into a story. Not having much of a past of my own, I began to make up stories to tell her and she would ask questions to help me fill in the blanks. That’s when I discovered how fun and fulfilling it was to be a storyteller.

Because I started out as a playwright, my first story published was actually a play called, And Jill Came Tumbling After.

Talking to a doctor once at a party. She specialized in Alzheimer’s and we had a very interesting chat about accessing memories. I became fascinated with the (simplistic, because there’s so much more to it) idea that the disease moves backwards, taking away the most current memories until there’s nothing left to recall.

That would have to be Araceli, the girlfriend of the main character’s sister. She curious and is always willing to explore the unusual, even if she doesn’t quite understand or believe in it.

Zade Holder has always been a free-spirited young woman, from a long dynasty of tarot-card readers, fortunetellers, and practitioners of magick. Growing up in a small town and never quite fitting in, Zade is determined to forge her own path. She leaves her home in Tennessee to break free from her overprotective mother Dela, the local resident spellcaster and fortuneteller.

Zade travels to Las Vegas and uses supernatural powers to become part of a premiere magic show led by the infamous magician Charles Spellman. Zade fits right in with his troupe of artists and misfits. After all, when everyone is slightly eccentric, appearing ''normal'' is much less important.

Behind the scenes of this multimillion-dollar production, Zade finds herself caught in a love triangle with Mac, the show's good-looking but rough-around-the-edges technical director and Jackson, the tall, dark, handsome and charming bandleader. Zade's secrets and the struggle to choose between Mac or Jackson creates reckless tension during the grand finale of the show. Using Chaos magick, which is known for being unpredictable, she tests her abilities as a spellcaster farther than she's ever tried and finds herselfat death's door. Her fate is left in the hands of a mortal who does not believe in a world of real magick, a fortuneteller who knew one day Zade would put herself in danger and a dagger with mystical powers...

Handbook for Mortals is the first book in the series of this urban fantasy, paranormal romance series by author Lani Sarem.

Following Zade through the trials--and romance--of finding her own place in the world, readers will identify with their own struggles to fit in, reflected in the fantastic, yet mundane world of Zade's life.

Handbook for Mortals is in development as a motion picture set to debut in 2018.

I wrote my first script when I was 11 but I probably had the desire even earlier than that.

Hmm..well this is my first book!

It was a few different things. I used to work in David Copperfield’s theater. I also had a fiancée that became an ex-fiancée’…and I had a need to put my emotions somewhere and I love magick! 

LOS ANGELES, summer of 1987.

Kathryn Blackmoore, the 26 year old heir to Blackmoore World Corp. and the future matriarch of the Blackmoore dynasty of witches has fled the haunted old monied neighborhood of South Hill in Bellingham, Washington looking to trade in a century of rumors, superstition, and her own heartache for the sun, sex, and music of the Sunset Strip.

Taking up residence in the famed and decaying Chateau Marmont hotel, Kathryn quickly finds herself in an erotic and thrilling journey into the world of Niiq, Arish, and Kuri; members of the band Nephilim, who seem to have the women of the Strip enthralled by their dark and sensuous sound. When bodies begin to turn up all over town and a mysterious and haunting figure fixates on Kathryn, she quickly learns that you can never escape your destiny.

RISE OF THE NEPHILIM is the first of a two part erotic paranormal romance/thriller revealing the beginnings of one of the most captivating characters in The Blackmoore Legacy series. It is a standalone prequel of eroticism, romance, and suspense.

At a young age. I remember I was in the first grade and I wrote a story about a young vampire that refused to go to sleep in his coffin and was determined to try to sleep upside down as a bat, but he couldn’t figure out how to stay as a bat long enough. I was six, so I can't imagine it was that great! When I was eleven is when it came on me quite suddenly that I could do it professionally, and that really it was the only thing I was meant to do.

I acquired my first literary agent at the age of nineteen for a novel called Instructions In Flesh. It didn’t go anywhere and I wish I could say that it got cannibalized into other things, but it never really did. At this time I got my first short story deal with Alyson Books (for decades they were the Knopf/Random House of LGBT publishing houses) for a story titled The Politics of Gray, for an anthology called Ultimate Undies: Erotic Stories About Underwear and Lingerie. A year later, my first novella, Following The Kaehees was published after winning a writing competition. I was really out of the gates running from that point on.

Well, I have this series, The Blackmoore Legacy (the first two books are Blackmoore and Symphony for the Devil) about this tormented and cursed family of witches, and one of the most popular characters is Kathryn Blackmoore, the central character's (Trevor Blackmoore) mother. I had been interested in both writing an erotic paranormal horror romance with a woman at the helm, as I normally write gay male main characters, and to tell the story of Kathryn as a young woman. A glimpse into the person she was when she was young, not a mother, and living her life somewhat carefree in the 1980’s, And Sunset Strip and that whole L.A. hair Metal-Gun’s n' Roses-partying scene was exactly where I knew she had been. It was a place of reinvention back then, and Kathryn was a young woman escaping a lot of stuff.

For the age and the sort of devil may care attitude I would say Kathryn is most like me. At 25/26 I was a live-by-night kind of person. I went to bars, saw bands play pretty much every night. I shopped and drank and rebelled. For the first part of my twenties I didn’t really act ‘my age' for a variety of reasons/circumstances that were going on, so I started living it up later in my twenties. There was a great exercise in freedom/adulthood that made life a sort of adventure every night.

The least like me would have to be Sheffield Burges-Kathryn's love interest and future husband in the main series (deceased)-he was simply everything I wasn’t in school. Popular, a jock, prom king, etc. I probably would have lusted after him growing up, but we are nothing alike.

I really love the first couple of chapters that take place eight years earlier in 1979. In Symphony for the Devil, it is mentioned that Kathryn was stalked by-and she later killed-a serial killer that had been named The Campus Slasher towards the end of her senior year. That whole scene is an homage to Halloween and to the Friday the 13th films. I had so much fun writing it, and it really plays like a classic slasher in your head, with witchcraft of course. I love Kathryn Blackmoore as my Final Girl. The Final Girl is such a great piece to the horror mythology, especially in slashers, and the fact that she is really the thing to be feared in the night because she’s a witch just makes it all the more awesome.

Really just trying to capture the feeling and imagery of Los Angeles in the eighties. I wasn’t there. I was a toddler, so it required hours upon hours of research. I love research. I do it for all of my books, and I get obsessive with it. But this was about finding places/parties/shops etc. That don’t exist anymore. Like Scream, which was a goth party at the Embassy Hotel on the weekends. I had to track down flyers, dates of shows, who preformed on a specific night, etc. And that research for one thing took hours of combing through pictures and articles, and the comments on articles and so forth, to try to piece one chapter together. It’s important to me that if people who were there read Rise they will say “God, I remember that.” Or people who were at The Rainbow or The Whiskey will get the same feeling.

I have always loved to write from the first day I picked up a pencil, but I didn’t write my first novel until the late 90’s. After I took writing classes and went to conferences, but wasn’t published until 2011.

My third manuscript, a Native American historical novel, was picked up by a small press (Boy Man Chief). It sold about 250 copies, but won The Spark Book Award and the Utah League of Writer’s award for Best Manuscript. The awards gave me the confidence to keep writing!

I love to read suspense novels, but as a romance author, my writing style is more suited to romantic suspense. I dreamed up the concept for the ICE Series when I felt like I needed to write something new (I’m known for writing Scottish historical romance). ICE (International Clandestine Enterprise) is a highly secret agency headquartered in Iceland and dedicated to ridding the world of international terrorism. The first book, HUNT FOR EVIL, introduces ICE headquarters and builds the world with a highly perilous mission faced by Logan Rodgers and Olivia Hamilton.

Since childhood. I had an active imagination and was always making up stories and characters.

My first novel was published by Simon&Shuster in 1978. It was one of the first in the Silhouette imprint line.

I’ve wanted to write this series for a long time, but was worried I couldn’t do it justice and couldn’t determine how graphic it should be sexually. Then I read “Fifty Shades of Grey” and I loved it. That book gave me the courage to write the first book of the Mind’s Eye series and every one after that. “Fifty” showed me that others liked to read about flawed characters who find redemption in the love of others.

Trudy is more like me because she’s unsure of herself, self-conscious, and wonders how in the heck she ever landed such a sexy beast (i.e. Levi Wolfe). She is also independent and pushes back when someone pushes her. I have a bossy nature (like Levi) and a smart mouth. Trudy can be sassy, too, but I usually tone her down in rewrites because she comes off sounding too much like me and I don’t want my readers to think she’s a shrew.

Well, I like the sexy scenes. LOL. My favorite part (as a writer) is The End. My favorite part (as a reader) is the scene when Levi tries to explain to Trudy how her nurturing side causes conflicting emotions in him. He’s never had anyone try to take care of him, coddle him, worry about him. He likes it, but doesn’t know how to respond to it, and he finds that he just can’t handle it yet.

Fight scenes are the hardest because I want the reader to be able to see it clearly – who is punching who and where – and feel it. Every blow. Every piercing pain. I want them to be in that fight and not be confused for one second about who landed what jab or who fell backward or which person saw stars, etc. I do a lot of rewriting of fight scenes.

I would be a lounge/supper club singer. I like to sing love songs and ballads.

Paranormal writer Kala Westenra, staying with her best friend Vika in Norway, is hunting for a new subject for an article, and finds it when she hears footsteps in the hall twenty minutes before Vika's hot brother Tor Viitanen arrives home. This, Vika tells her, is the vardoger - a Norwegian ghost, a future echo which always precedes a person's arrival.

Kala plans to stake out the hallway to catch the vardoger in the act - and is shocked when, on its arrival, it kisses her. Her feelings for Tor have been hidden ever since she first met him two years ago; could it be that the vardoger is acting on Tor's secret desire for her?

As Kala and Tor work together to understand what is happening with the spirit, their longing for each other begins to overtake them - but the vardoger has more to show them than they expected...

I've been writing all my life, although only started writing erotic romance when I was about 27. I've always loved to write and usually wrote some form of romance, apart from a brief attempt at a school story in my teens which, thankfully, disappeared with my old computer.

My debut novel was The Hand He Dealt, about a gaming management student who gets into a complicated relationship with her best friend and her best friend's boyfriend. It was great fun to write and Ash is still my favourite of all my heroes.

I read an article in the Fortean Times about vardogers, which struck me as particularly interesting because of the way they were presented - it was stated that vardogers aren't considered scary in context because they're handy for household scheduling. That gave me a few ideas about how I could give them a new twist.

When I was a little girl and I realized I can make up my own worlds and my own people.

My very first was a book of poetry and short stories I published through my real name. The first book I published under a pen name was THE DIVA AND THE DUKE, published as Jackson D’Lynne. It’s a sexy time-travel paranormal book. My first book as Lynn Winchester was THE SHEPHERD’S DAUGHTER.

It is the 5th book in my Dry Bayou Brides Series. I kind of HAD to write it because it is a continuation of the story of this town. Also, I felt that there needed to be a story about a summer romance gone wrong, and second chances at making it right.

None of the characters are me. That’s the beauty of making people up, I can make them better people than I am.

I liked to make up stories as a kid, I guess some people call that lying. 😀 Honestly, I’ve always loved to read, and had so many stories of my own in my head that I just decided to try to get them out on paper and see what happened. I didn’t get serious until my youngest entered kindergarten then, writing was a bit difficult with two little ones in the house and Dora the Explorer always playing in the background.

Struck By Eros was my first novel published, but I had a short story called Swallowed By Darkness published in a small online magazine. Since then I’ve taken that story and placed it on Amazon myself.

Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. Yes. Seriously. In the old version they play at Christmas every year, there is a character names Hermy. Hermy doesn’t want to be an elf, Hermy wants to be a dentist. I wondered what would happen if a vampire didn’t want to be a vampire. How would they become human again?

I’ve always been interested in telling stories, it’s the most human activity there is.

‘Shooting Dr. Jack.’ 

I’d resisted writing anything with a ‘private eye’ in it, but I wondered what would happen if you did it from a female perspective, especially a female who came from the inner city, who maybe isn’t the biggest proponent of law enforcement.

Half Fae. Half Demon. 100% Badass Bitch.

My sisters and I weren’t born with magic. No, we were forced into it. Betrayed into it by the one person who was supposed to protect us. Now we’re living in a shithole desert town at the mercy of a sexy-as-hell Fae named Bastian.

So far, I’ve been able to buy Violet and Jade time to live freely, without being held to Bastian’s constant call. I’ve been doing his dirty work for five long years, but my sisters’ freedom is wearing thin. Soon he’ll summon them, just as he did me—and I can’t let that happen.

Bastian’s latest assignment offers an escape for my sisters, and I’d be a fool not to take it. But my target is more powerful than any man I’ve faced before, and doubly seductive. He draws out my inner demons—literally—and evading this attraction might prove more difficult than finishing what I started.

It sounds like the answer you always hear, but I love to tell stories. It hit a certain point in my life where I couldn’t get them to quiet down. These characters and ideas had formed and grown and they needed an outlet.

Dark Summoner, the first book in my Relic Keeper Series. I actually have it for free at the moment because book two is coming out next month!

You know, my idea started with a setting. I imagined some dumpy crap town where you’d least expect supernaturals to live. Then I imagined what kind of people would live there? Not anyone by choice. And so was born the concept for Gravestones & Wicked Bones. A story about our lack of choice and how we (or Ivy) faces that reality.

My mother was a librarian and she always brought home interesting books from the library. So as far back as I can remember, I’ve always been interested in stories, both fiction and non-fiction. My father liked Robert W. Service and Rudyard Kipling, and through those writers, I became interested in poetry—especially descriptive poetry.

My first book was a non-fiction book about the history of the Boeing 737. It was published by McGraw Hill in the Aero series. I’ve always been interested in planes and writing about an airliner seemed natural to me.

For some years I’ve had an idea of a novel with a male and a female protagonist on opposite sides of the environmental/climate debate. I plan for more of these books with the same characters, including the French-speaking dog, in other locations in the world. Over the last several years I’ve worked on outlines of these various stories. I don’t know why Alaska floated to the top first.

Dan Richardson, the male protagonist and I share have a lot of common experiences, war veterans, helicopters, survey work, and environmental impact statements. I think he is most like me in that he is very solution oriented, much more interested in solving problems than being stymied or frustrated by them. I think it is pretty common among writers in that you write best about which you know best, like yourself.

As a child, I had a severe case of over imagination and would not shut up. I wrote my first romance in fifth grade (I vaguely remember it also featured a cat). In high school, I wrote angsty poetry and had a sketchbook where I drew just parts of people. Then I found sci-fi and began to express the weirdness in my head on paper. But after a half-completed sci-fi/paranormal novel drew confusion from a class of general fiction writers (is your heroine an animal or an alien?) and consternation from a sci-fi group (why is there sex in this?), I lost my gumption and stopped writing for a long time.

My first story published was in 2012. On Par with a Fairy by Lyla Bardan is a young adult fantasy novella about a fairy who sacrifices immortality to become human and date a teen boy.

My dreams. All my books are inspired by my weird, lucid dreams.

None of the characters are like me. The heroine has a number of traits from my daughter though, my son pops up in a couple of the secondary characters, and whenever I needed the hero to be a moody poop, I relied on my husband. LOL.