Welcome to New Faces, where we are pleased to introduce some of the debut authors in the romance genre. This issue, we welcome Kate Huntington, whose whose debut Regency The Captain's Courtship is garnering rave reviews. Welcome, Kate!

Tell us about yourself.

I am from Huntington, Indiana, a very conservative midwestern small town. I was pretty undistinguished as a student, so I was surprised and a bit apprehensive to find myself enrolled in the Honors English program when I switched schools my sophomore year. I'm still half convinced it was a mistake. But I had a wonderful teacher who introduced me to PRIDE AND PREJUDICE by Jane Austen and changed my life. From then on, English was my favorite subject. And that's when I decided I wanted to be a novelist someday.

After I got out of college (where I majored in English, of course), I had to find a job. I still wanted to be a novelist, but I was a single woman who needed to support herself. The Huntington Herald-Press had an opening for a social news reporter and I was fortunate enough to be hired. I not only did the social news and occasional feature stories, but I also did the obituaries and the hog market reports. I loved it. I couldn't believe my luck in finding an employer who would pay me to write! A year later I went to a bigger newspaper in Fort Wayne, Indiana, as a feature writer; then I moved to the Chicago area where I met my future husband and worked my way up to a position as managing editor in a suburban community newspaper chain. But when I was about to turn 40, I realized that I had spent almost 20 years writing other people's words and it was time to write my own.

I was married by then to a man who understood and respected my ambition to be a novelist, thank heaven. He didn't flinch when I told him I wanted to quit my management job to take one that paid about half as much. My co-workers, however, thought I was out of my mind when I quit my job as a managing editor to take a day job as a secretary so I could have regular hours to write romance novels. I wrote at night and on weekends. Feverishly.

It took me years to get published. There were times when I thought I was kidding myself, and it would never happen. Now I am a full-time writer with contracts for several more novels, and life couldn't be better. I pinch myself a lot.

Are you coming to romance writing from another job?

I think my journalism training was extremely helpful in preparing me for a career as a novelist. In journalism, you develop discipline and a tough hide. After that, as I explained above, I took a day job as a secretary. I learned a lot about human nature in that job. I learned a lot about business. But I also learned that I didn't want to work in an office until I was 65. I feel very fortunate to be a full-time writer now.

My mother-in-law asked me once if I didn't find it difficult to sit in my home office day after day and write. She was surprised I didn't get cabin fever. I could honestly say I never get tired of working in the same office every day because in my imagination I'm not really there. I'm at Almack's, dressed in the first stare of elegance and dazzling all of London's most eligible bachelors with my witty repartee. Or I'm gathering seashells on the beach at Brighton with a handsome stranger. And when that gets old, there's always e- mail.

What led you to write romance?

I'm a voracious reader. I write romances because I like to read romances. They're all over the house. My husband keeps putting up bookshelves, but I've filled them all. When I'm sick or feeling depressed, I re-read a dog-eared selection from my keeper shelf, usually something by Georgette Heyer or Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters. It works like a charm.

Tell us about your road to publication.

How long did it take? Forever! One thing I've learned is there are no shortcuts to getting published. I was lucky enough to have a lot of help and encouragement along the way. When I was a reporter in Fort Wayne, Indiana, I interviewed Lass Small, who now writes for Silhouette Desire. She had just published her first book, A LASTING TREASURE, and she took me under her wing. I had always wanted to write a novel, but for the first time I actually met someone who did it! Lass was an enormously important influence in my life.

Other authors who have been extremely supportive of my career are Laura Resnick, who wrote romances for Silhouette Desire and Zebra as Laura Leone before embarking upon a fantasy career with TOR Books under her own name; Connie Rinehold, who writes Regency historicals as Eve Byron; Theresa Weir; Maggie Davis; Jean Barrett; Bobbi Smith; Edith Layton; Crystal Thrasher. (Now I'll be awake all night, worrying that I left someone out.) In THE ARTIST'S WAY, Julia Cameron writes that creative artists are tribal, and I believe this is truly the case with authors. I don't know what I would have done without my tribe. My soul sisters believed in me when I was almost ready to give up.

I also am grateful to my wonderful agent, Jake Elwell of Wieser & Wieser, Inc., and my wonderful editor, John Scognamiglio of Zebra Books, who bought THE CAPTAIN'S COURTSHIP and offered me contracts for three more books.

What kind of research was involved for your first book?

Lots! I read voraciously about the Regency and I loved every minute of it. I did so much research that I found myself fighting a temptation to display my superior knowledge by putting lots more historical detail into my book than anyone would ever want to read. I had to know all about the Napoleonic Wars, what people ate, what people wore, forms of address for the aristocracy, details about England's royal family, what kind of household technology they had, and what household servant would have performed what task.

I began to feel like the director of my own movie. I wrote the screenplay, cast the roles, designed the costumes, designed the scenery and even controlled the weather! I created a just world. The good people were rewarded and the bad people ... weren't.

The long-suffering staff members of the Algonquin Area Public Library were tireless in their efforts to find information for me. They managed to get stuff that had been out of print for decades. I'm surprised they don't run for the back room when they see me coming.

Who are your influences as a writer?

As I mentioned before, Jane Austen's PRIDE AND PREJUDICE changed my life. I read all of her books and, after I'd gone through them, I started looking for more books set during the Regency. One day at the drug store I saw a paperback copy of FARO'S DAUGHTER by Georgette Heyer and bought it because the heroine's yellow dress on the cover resembled the clothes Jane Austen's Eliza wore on the cover of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. Then I went to the local library and borrowed all of Georgette Heyer's books, one after the other. It was a religious experience. When I read Georgette Heyer's Regencies, I was transformed from this shy, bookish, chubby, be-speckled teen-ager into a beautifully dressed, poised, clever debutante who had a snappy remark for every situation. I liked her historicals and mysteries, too. When I read Ms. Heyer's obituary in the seventies, I was devastated. Of course I felt sad for her family. But my first selfish reaction was, "Oh my God! What am I going to do? There won't be any more!"

I've also read everything I can get my hands on by Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters, Rosemary Edghill, Cheryl Reavis, Mary Jo Putney, Laura Kinsale, Kathleen Eagle, Theresa Weir, Nora Roberts, Maggie Davis/Katherine Deauxville and lots of others.

What does your family think of having a romance author in their midst?

They love it! I'm an overnight celebrity in my hometown. My parents, brothers and sister are the best publicists you could ever want. Add my proud grandmother, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews to the mix and everybody knows I'm an author. My husband has given cover flats for THE CAPTAIN'S COURTSHIP to all his co-workers.

Tell us about plans for future books.

My next Zebra Regency Romance, THE LIEUTENANT'S LADY, will be released in December, 1999. The heroine will be Lydia Whittaker, the heroine's younger sister from THE CAPTAIN'S COURTSHIP. Right now I'm working on "The Archangel Cat," a novella that will appear in the Zebra Regency Anthology SPRING KITTENS in 2000. And I've just been offered a new contract for two more Regencies from Zebra. They will be AN UNSUITABLE CHAPERON, which will be published in summer of 2000 and MISTLETOE MAYHEM, which will be published at Christmastime, 2000. So it's going to be a busy year.

How can readers get in touch with you?

I'd be happy to hear from readers via e-mail at KChwed@aol.com. Or they may write to me in care of Zebra Books, 850 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022-6222.

Thanks, Kate,and best of luck! Readers, we have a review of The Captain's Courtship.

February 26, 1999