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BIOGRAPHY
- KAY GREGORY
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I was a teenager
when I came to Canada with my parents after my English father retired
and my Canadian mother wanted to return to her roots on Vancouver Island.
I'm not sure my parents knew it, but I planned to stay a year then go
back to England and my friends.
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Fate and the Canadian
Navy, in the person of Able Seaman Bob Gregory, intervened. We met in
the unromantic setting of a dog club banquet - he was a blind date - and
were married a year later. We then moved to Winnipeg, which was a shock
to a young woman used to rainy summers and wet, green Christmases. Thunder
Bay, where we lived next, was only marginally warmer in the winter, and
I was relieved when we finally settled in Vancouver with its comfortably
familiar rain.
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For the next few
years I was busy raising two sons and a collection of dogs, hamsters,
gerbils, rats and ferrets. There wasn't much time even to think about
my longtime ambition to be a writer, especially after Bob returned to
school so he could become a teacher. During those years I had more jobs
than I can count, everything from removing the roe from dead herring,
to packaging paper bags (the bags won and I lost the job), running a health
food bar, cleaning office buildings and working in a variety of offices
as a rather uninspired secretary. Once, when asked what I did for a living,
I remember replying, "I don't know. Mostly I change jobs."
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Eventually I did
find time to take a series of creative writing courses which resulted
in bad poetry, children's fiction, literary stories about the human condition
and aging - at 25 I was, of course, an expert - humorous articles about
family life and rats, and what I fondly imagined was suspense. Up until
the time I sold my first book, my most notable writing achievement was
a letter in the local newspaper asking if anyone could provide a nice
home for 34 rats. My elder son had brought home four of his school's rodents
for the holidays, and a rat called Demetrius had enjoyed a splendid summer
doing what he did best with three lovely lady rats called Athena, Cassandra
and Aphrodite. Yes, believe it or not, we did find them all homes. I'm
not the only crazy mother in B.C.
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In 1986, one of my
suspense novels turned out to be a romance, and I sold A Star for a Ring
to Mills & Boon. Since then I have published 29 books, novellas and short
stories with Harlequin Mills & Boon and other publishers, in over 20 languages.
My most recent book release was Opposites Attract from Ulverscroft Press.
Some of my books are also available in Large Print and audio, as well
as electronic format with Muse Creations. Even though I'm a techno-nerd,
I firmly believe e-publishing will be the way of the future.
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I am currently working
- that's what I tell people anyway - on my 30th book, which will be a
sequel to A WOMAN OF EXPERIENCE.
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| Now, after many years
of doing what I didn't want to do, I am lucky enough to have the best
job in the world - writing books that people actually want to read. |
