Jaycie Cash

Jaycie Cash is the pseudonym of a woman in the book biz who is proud to have Oklahoma roots. She is currently at work on her second book, THE SPLIT-FAMILY ROBINSON.

http://www.jayciecash.com

Laura Spinella

Biographies are a tough sell.  John Nash, Joan of Arc, Helen Keller—people who led very readable lives, and yet the movies did better.  I’ll tell you now I have no Oprah moment, not even a hint of a Lifetime movie.  That said, here we are.

I grew up on Long Island in the 1970s, the daughter of 1940's parents.  I was fortunate to have older sisters.  They were more convincing in the part, following rules, politics, and parental advice.  I bucked the system. I wanted to be a singer, devastated to learn I couldn’t carry a tune in a trough.  Instead, I wrote.  This was something I had an aptitude for, something that pressed boundaries, and I liked that.  Looking back, my pedestrian childhood was probably a good thing, having spent more time making up stories than anything else.

Life picked up pace as I went off to college, outlining the imprint for Beautiful Disaster, though I wouldn’t write the novel for another twenty years.  I attended the University of Georgia where I fell in love with a boy, a friend, and the South.  It fashioned me into a chameleon of sorts.  The North is home, but that evocative place changed me, giving me license and a classroom far beyond J-school where they actually did give me a degree.  I’ve kept the friend and the South close, the boy not making the journey.  That, too, is a good thing.  If it hadn’t happened exactly that way I would have never been privy to Mia and Flynn’s story.

I fell into a freelance career, writing for magazines, newspapers—even penning a column for a while.  Eventually, I knew I’d write a novel.  I knew it like you know your shoe size or that despite very brown eyes your baby’s will stay perfectly blue.  This is my corny segue to the present where I did marry a blue-eyed man whose generosity has afforded me many things, including the time to write.  In addition to Matt and me, there are three exceptional children, two dogs, and one super-size cat, the lives of which take place in a 100-year old house outside Boston.

http://www.lauraspinella.net