Member Spotlight: Author Rhianna Samuels
Author: Jody Wallace
Original Publication Date in Love Notes: February 2008

Q. We’re so glad to have you as a member of MCRW.  Are you a native of Nashville or somewhere else? If somewhere else, where, and how did you end up here?

A. Nope, I am not from Nashville. I live in Evansville, IN, and your RWA Chapter is closer than Indy for me to drive. And I must admit it’s a much prettier drive than to Indy.

My father was a Petroleum Engineer and like all oil field trash, we moved many times for his job. We lived in E’ville when I was a child and my parents had many friends here, so when they retired, they chose to move here. 

The very day that they moved, while several of us children slept in an empty house with no phone, waiting for the moving van to arrive the next morning, their closest friends (here) hammered on the door at 2am to tell us all that my youngest brother had been killed in a motorcycle accident in Colorado Springs. I decided that week that it was important that they have family living close enough to be there for them as they grew older. I moved down from Indy within the month. I’ve been here ever since, 16 years.

Q. What made you decide to try your hand at writing romance novels? 

A. I started with Science Fiction. About 12 years ago, I was a voracious reader and would spend way too much money on books, sci fi and romance. I had a few months were everything I thought I’d like to read just didn’t do it for me. I said the famous, “I can write better than that.”  I started writing. Shaking Off the Dust, the book I published with Samhain Publishing, was actually about the fourth book I wrote, although it felt like the sixth, because by the time it was contracted I was on number six. I wrote two sequels to it.

Q. Tell us about your "WIP" or work-in-progress?  What in specific do you write?

A. I have been working on a historical; it is going very slowly for me. I write on it for a bit and then work on other things for a good while. 

Q: How do you balance your writing with your other responsibilities? (Yes, as always, I'm looking for tips...)

A. I’m not the gal to ask. I wish you could give me tips. I have a day job that is often sucking every bit of brainpower and energy that I have. The month of December was a hiatus. Ennui of large proportions settled in and didn’t let go until the last week or two. And family responsibilities have been taking up my extra time.

Q. What do you do when you're not writing?  Do you have a "day" job, hobbies, obsessions?

A. I am an ER nurse, actually staff development in my ED. So I am teaching and writing policies and procedures, setting up orientations, doing audits, and I still do staffing just to keep my finger in and maintain staff respect.

I love to read, but have a TBR pile filling a bookcase. I have to make a choice on writing or reading. And lately I have been doing the chat groups and blogs to promote my book, which came out in E-pub January 1, 2008. That will suck your time like a vacuum. It’s big reason why I didn’t get much writing done last month. But, now I am resolving to write and only check my emails.

Q. Do you have children, pets, plants, a spouse, dust bunnies, a thimble collection or anything like that?

A. Nope. I am the cool aunt that behaves immature. I had a son who was stillborn. I had nine proposals by the time I was 29 and then they stopped asking. It’s a shame none of the nine was the right man. (I suspect that my interview it filled with too much information, but you asked.)

Q. What are some of your favorite books, romance and other?

A. I fell in love with Georgette Heyer when I was twelve. I have read all of her historicals. I read a good portion of Barbara Cortland’s books, and that is saying something because she wrote a ton. Love, love, love Lord of the Rings. Joan Smith, in the eighties, I buy all of Laurel K, although she is working hard at losing most of her readers. Jo Beverly and Stephanie Laurens are autobuys, as well as Sherrilyn Kenyon and Patricia Briggs UF.

Q. If you could go on a dream vacation anywhere in the world on someone else's perfectly legitimate dime, where would you go, who would you take, and what would you do? 

A. Well, I am going to pretend that I don’t have an ear and balance problem that makes it nearly impossible for me to fly for longer than a couple of hours with out being violently ill. I would love to go to the UK and have a local take me to every place I’ve read about since I was twelve. Then, on to Ireland and Scotland. I would like to stay at mansions along the way, in large heavily decorated bedrooms and parlors.

Q: Tell us a secret!

A. It’s widely known in my family. I snore.

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