Welcome to our New Faces column, where we are pleased to introduce new romance authors to our readers. This time we're visiting with Julie Anne Long, whose debut book, The Runaway Duke, was released a few months ago. Her second book is due out shortly. Let's meet Julie Anne.

Julie Anne, welcome to TRR! Tell us about yourself.

I'm a native of the Bay Area in California-consequently, I'm a big weather sissy. I experienced New York and Dallas summers for the first time a few years ago (at RWA conferences)-you know, the kind where all you have to do is, say, blink, and you break a sweat?-and I was limp, whimpering and utterly humbled. I live in San Francisco now, where I moved about…more than a decade now?! (hard to believe)…with my band (more on that later) all the way from Fremont, California (a whole HOUR away from San Francisco). I currently live in a small, inexorably deteriorating Victorian apartment. I guess I'll put up with a lot for Bay windows and hardwood floors, even though I live in constant fear of winding up in my downstairs neighbor's apartment stark naked and clinging to my shower curtain because the floor under my bathtub finally gave way.

I love San Francisco-it's bloody expensive, but it's beautiful, I can walk to everywhere, there are hundreds of fantastic restaurants and interesting things to do (not to mention interesting people to look at), and most of my friends are here in the Bay Area. My family moved away from the Bay Area a few years ago…and some day I may need to entertain the idea of living some place where the sun actually shines in the summertime, or my writing might get too Gothic (it's fog, fog, fog here I the summertime).

I think I've been a writer in some capacity ever since I could write-my first full-length work was the crayola-illustrated story of a Rabbit named Reddy (he was red!). I originally set out to be a Journalism major, and I was editor of my high school and college papers-even won a few awards. But I switched to Creative Writing as a major, as that seemed to be a more comfortable fit for my hard-to-rein-in imagination. And in between…well, I decided I wanted to be a rock star, in part because I had a giant crush on Bono and a sort of posthumous crush on Jim Morrison. (That hair! Those cheekbones!). And I actually went about doing that very earnestly.

Are you coming to romance writing from another job?

Well, speaking of Bono and his ilk…I loved music so much it seemed as necessary as oxygen at one time, so, to the horror of my English professors, who were all pretty enthusiastic about my writing, I bought a Fender Strat, taught myself to play, and started a band. And I actually had a certain amount of success doing it-for about eight years, I wrote songs, sang and played guitar in local bands while working at a very intense corporate job during the day. Then there was a big "re-engineering" (corporate-speak for "we plan to lay off as many of you saps as possible") at my company. It became clear to me as a result of enduring that experience that what I really wanted to do was work independently-be my own boss-as well as do more meaningful work. So I found a job at a nonprofit while I taught myself web design, with the ultimate goal of eventually working independently so I could have more time to write.

Unfortunately, I then ended up working all the bloody time-that is, until the dot com bubble burst. Then I found myself a little broke. A number of my favorite people moved away, and life got pretty austere for a time. But it turned out to be a blessing, because, being a restless person who always wants to be involved in something creative, I returned to writing, which didn't cost a thing. Which is how I ended up writing my first novel, THE RUNAWAY DUKE. And now I write full time.

What led you to write romance?

I've read romance all my life-a friend of mine recently reminded me about FOREVER AMBER, which cracked me up, because I remember being titillated by my mom's copy when I was little-but then again, I read voraciously, across all genres. I didn't know I'd actually written a romance until my agent told me that's just what I'd done. I just thought I'd written a story set in the Regency period. A 500-page story (anyone who writes or aspires to write romance will laugh at that). Obviously, Warner worked with me to whittle it down a bit. When I reflect upon it, I think pretty much anything I'd attempt to write would eventually turn into a romance, anyway. Heck, I could be writing a software manual, or something, and I'd try to inject a little drama and passion into it. Some smooching. Some unruly hair.

Tell us about your road to publication.

Well, to continue with the story of how I began writing THE RUNAWAY DUKE…cut to my austere little room (remember, I was broke-ish), where I just sort of plunged into writing it. The only other person who read it before I sent it to an agent was my non-writer friend David, who said: "Love it! Keep going!" Which, you, know, was really all I needed to hear in order to keep going. We writers use praise as fuel, I think. So I kept going, and I finished it over the span of about a year and a half. I didn't work on it religiously that entire time…I set it aside once or twice during that period.

And then one day shortly after I'd finished the manuscript, I was sort of forced to go to a different Laundromat than I normally frequent, because my usual Laundromat was inexplicably jam-packed. I ended up stuck at a new Laundromat several blocks away from my house, and to pass the time, I flipped through the only available reading material there, which turned out to be the Learning Annex catalog. I discovered that Michael Larsen, of Larsen and Pomada Literary Agency in San Francisco, was teaching a class on how to get published, and that his partner, Elizabeth Pomada, would review partial fiction submissions if you registered early enough. Something sort of went "ping!" in my head, and I just sort of…knew. To make a long story short, Elizabeth became my agent shortly thereafter, and she sold the book to Warner a few months later. So, though it was a fairly straightforward process for me, in some ways it seemed years in the making, as everything I'd experienced up to that point seemed necessary to get me to sit down and finally finish writing the book.

What kind of research was involved for your first book?

It's funny…I'd be writing away, and I'd have Rebecca Tremaine (DUKE's heroine) bend over to smell a rose, and then I'd stop and think: "Wait! What kind of roses did they have in England in 1820?" (Only a few kinds, as it turns out). Or Connor would be grooming Arabian horses in the stable, and I'd stop and think: "Wait: were there Arabian horses in England in 1820?" So my research was diverse and pretty amusing at times, and the writing and research pretty much occurred simultaneously: my browser bookmarks still include sites on flintlock pistols, how to treat musket ball wounds, how to fix a dislocated shoulder (that one didn't make it into the book), the history of Arabian horses, herbal remedies for pain, gypsy vocabulary, origins of various English cheeses, the history of hay (did you know they only started baling in 1850?? I almost blew it with that one-I took out a reference to a bale of hay in the final edited version). On and on and on. And specifically regarding the gypsies… I could find very little information on Gypsies in England during the regency period-until I serendipitously stumbled across the exact book I needed at a bookstore three blocks from my house, a relatively rare book called Gypsies of Britain.

When I set out to write THE RUNAWAY DUKE, I knew a certain amount about the period just by osmosis, being a Jane Austen fan, and all, and a reader of Regency-set stories. But it's the little details that add verisimilitude. (I've been dying for an excuse to use that word. ), and those are the one you have to watch for. It can get tricky, but research is a blast.

For my second book, to LOVE A THIEF, I ended up amassing a little library of books on the history of the British legal system, the Regency underworld, English townhouses and country homes, as well as googling my little heart out.

Who are your influences as a writer?

There are oh so many. And I'm not sure they're as much influences as inspirations, or impetuses, in a way. There were the romance authors my mom read when I was younger-Kathleen Woodiwiss, Rosemary Rogers, et al.-and there were big, romantic stories, like Karleen Koen's Through a Glass Darkly (boy, I miss stories like that), which I've read again and again for the richness of the characterization and the emotional complexity of the story. I love Diana Gabaldon's books for that reason, too. I remember discovering Amanda Quick about ten years ago and gobbling up all of her books, and there are authors I discovered later, like Stephanie Laurens and Lisa Kleypas and Laura Kinsale. I read far fewer historical romances now than I used to, because reading them almost feels like homework now! I also love P.D. James, Marian Keyes, all the Harry Potter books…I read a lot of straight history and historical biography (like Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire), and tons of literary stuff, too-just finished Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides), which I loved. Oddly, too, now that I'm writing Regency-set romance, I find myself turning toward novels set in countries other than England-I love Alexander McCall Smith's # 1 Lady's Detective Agency series for that reason (it's set in Botswana). I think it's important to read a wide variety of writing. I think it helps keep my own writing limber. J

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

I think everyone's pretty tickled, actually. Certainly they've bought multiple copies of my books, though I'm pretty sure I won't be able to count on that as the novelty of the whole thing wears off.

Tell us about plans for future books.

Well, currently I'm writing a trilogy for Warner Forever about three sisters separated when they were very young because their mother, the mistress of a famous politician, is framed for his murder and forced to flee, leaving them behind. The first book is called BEAUTY AND THE SPY, and it's currently scheduled for publication in March 2006.

How can readers get in touch with you?

Send me a note at Julie@julieannelong.com, or stop by and poke around my website at www.julieannelong.com. I'd love to hear from you!

Julie Anne, thanks for joinng us! Readers, we have a review of The Runaway Duke here at The Romance Reader.)

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