Vampires, Werewolves & Faeries...Oh My!

Professional Bio

Mandy M. Roth  grew up fascinated by creatures that go bump in the night. From the very beginning, she showed signs of creativity. At age five, she had her first piece of artwork published. Writing came into play early in her life as well. Over the years, the two mediums merged and led her to work in marketing. Combining her creativity with her passion for horror has left her banging on the keyboard into the wee hours of the night. Mandy lives with her husband and three children on the shores of Lake Erie, where she is currently starting work on her Master’s Degree.

To learn more about Mandy, please visit www.mandyroth.com or send an email to mandy@mandyroth.com. For latest news about Mandy’s newest releases subscribe to her announcement list in Yahoo! groups. http://groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/Mandy_M_Roth

Personal Bio

    I grew up fascinated by creatures that go bump in the night. From the very beginning I was odd and creative. After studying art all the way through school, I went to major in it at college.  One rather unexpected child later, I changed my major and finished with a great balance of art and business.  The two fields left me a prime candidate for marketing. I'm working on my MBA with a concentration in marketing but to be honest, its taken a back seat while I catch up on releases.

    I live with my husband and three boys. They definitely keep me busy.  Between convincing one he really doesn't need to have his eyebrow pierced, listening to the middle one's philosophy on life and pulling the youngest off the counter top, I do manage to eek in a very small amount of writing time during the day. Though, I'm not sure if plopping my laptop on the dinning room table, jacking the sound up high, and setting my email program to check mail every two minutes while I chase children and clean the house counts but for the sake of argument we'll say it does.

    More often than not, my writing is done from around 8pm until 3 am. When writer block hits, I find that I still can't sleep until 3, so I'm left to find other things to do. Most of the time, I'll catch up on fellow authors' books or do some research.  When the writers block is extremely bad, I find myself playing video games.  You heard me right! LOL!  Hey, I ended up with all boys for a reason you know!

    The past year has been a whirlwind for me.  July, 2003 I sat down one night at my computer because I couldn't sleep.  There was NOTHING on television and I'd read all the books on my shelves. Bored out of my mind, I decided that I jot a few things down.  Four weeks later, DAUGHTER OF DARKNESS was done and book two was starting. I'd never written anything before and was a bit shocked myself. After some coaxing from a close friend of mine, I sent it out to about five places.  One agent flat out told me no.  I suspect this was because he didn't represent that genre but I already knew that when I sent it.  He had is picture up on the web and was/is a hottie.  By January 1st, I had a contract in hand from New Concepts Publishing. I squealed, then squealed some more.  Then I stopped, called a close friend of mine and we screamed together. We also spend the next week attempting to figure out what DOD stood for.  We originally thought Date of Delivery, yet it didn't really make sense in the context of the email. Then it hit me: DOD stands for Daughter of Darkness.

     Yeah, you know its bad when you screw that up.

    I went on a new contract high and finished three more books in the DOD series, wrote IMMORTAL OPS, SUPERNATURAL SUSPECTS, THE VALKYRIE, VALHALLA, MISFITS, & LAST CALL--all within three or four months.  Not sleeping, and being convinced that at any moment someone would show up at your front door and call you out on not being a "real writer" will make you insane enough to toss that many books out.

     As the release for DOD approached, I met a few more "newbie" authors at NCP and several from Ellora's Cave. We all hit it off immediately, especially Michelle M. Pillow, Jaycee Clark and myself. From that point on, I had  people to share the rollercoaster ride with.  They were great because all were seasoned writing veterans and didn't seem to mind holding my hand through the entire process. The marketing fell to me and after being sick to death of a certain daily/weekly online interviewer ignoring NCP authors, HAPPY HOUR WITH THE MM's was born.  Michelle and I launched it with the idea that authors from ANY publisher were welcome and that we would do our best not to bore anyone to death.  We came up with the idea and the four main characters.  We still needed a setting.  We knew that we wanted it to be a blend of a soap, Sex In The City, and Cheers.  The minute Michelle suggested  we use the bar/nightclub from the DOD series I jumped on it.  Thus, THE RAVEN became the MM's hang out.

     It's unbelievable how much the project promoted us as well as the guest authors. It is still popular and each time a chapter is released we know that we'll be getting up to a thousand hits!  While the direction of HAPPY HOUR has changed a bit, the story is still strong. 

    In the middle of all of this, Jaycee Clark, introduced me to Jaci Burton.  She and her husband Charlie were just amazingly nice to me.  Instantly, they seemed to take me under their wing.  Jaci included (still does) me in many of the promotional projects she's working on.  She is such a sweet gal that she even pushed her editor to take a peek at a piece that Michelle and I co-wrote.  In the end, we ended up with a contract from EC and two people we consider friends. (Plus, I met Melani Blazer, Shannon Stacey and got to know Angie W a hell of a lot better....leaving me with an even bigger writing support group.)

    With NCP releases in the double digits, EC release(s) coming in the new year, and a fountain of reader support, I'm finding many new doors opening to me.  Now, I only need the courage to leap through them feet first. It's all been very surreal.  I do NOT se myself as an author and laugh a bit every time I tell someone what I do.  I'm still convinced someone will show up and call me a poser but I'm confidant I could kick their arse, or at the very least creep them out enough to run away.

    I can only guess at what the coming years will bring.  If it's half as good as 2004, I'll be a happy gal!  I'm doing something I love, meeting tons of new people, have the greatest readers in the world and the support of my family.

   Hopefully, I'll have some exciting news to share with you all very soon!  I'd rather not share until I know for sure, but rest assured, once I know, you'll know.

Thanks for you support,

Mandy

(who is too lazy to proofread her own website) LOL