Members

Donnell Ann Bell
Donnell Ann Bell is a member of Heartbeat and a fan of all this writing group offers. A multi-award winning unpublished author, she writes romantic suspense, mystery and women’s fiction. Her website is   and she blogs about writing with a multi-genre group called http://fivescribes.blogspot.com/ .

Barbara Burnham
Barbara Burnham is a nurse editor who currently works in a medical ICU in Northern Virginia. Her previous nursing experience includes neonatal and cardiac intensive care as well as home health. Her editing experience includes a term as editor of the Baltimore/Washington, DC Metro edition of Nursing Spectrum and a semester as a reporter on Capitol Hill. Some of her favorite stories include Herb of Peaches and Herb fame searching for his longtime signing partner and a contest that awarded elementary school children a prize and cover photo for their definition of what is special about a nurse. Barbara is currently working on contemporary series medical romance and women's fiction with medical themes.

Marie Campbell
Marie Campbell wrote seriously for awhile then put everything away for a very long time. Now she's dragging it all back out again, determined to seriously pursue this dream. She actually entered a few contests in 2008 and has been encouraged with the results. On the other hand, a very polished first chapter does not a novel make, so at this point please refer back to her 2009 resolution: write, write and write some more. Marie is a nurse with many years of experience in lots of different areas, wife to her own wonderful workaholic hero, mother of two grown children, new grandmother of one beautiful little girl, and the endlessly optimistic trainer/slave to two huge canines usually found snoring at her feet.

Deb Dufel
When Deb Dufel isn't running after her Houdini incarnate beagle, sorting out her husband's missing socks, holding discussions with their older son on the finer techniques of how to burn a chicken or being told one more time, not to turn the burner up so high by their younger son, Deb Dufel is found in her office where she dreams a little dream of Flight surgeons, ER docs and EMT's...

Nia Fishler
Nia Fishler grew up in Squaw Valley, California, a ski resort near Lake Tahoe, where her family moved five years after the 1960 Winter Olympics took place there. Her parents, both teachers, raised their children without television. As long as Nia was reading, they didn’t mind that she read only books about animals. A would-be animal behaviorist, she read fiction and nonfiction in this “genre” until she accidentally selected George Orwell’s Animal Farm from her parent’s bookshelves only to find a very grown up and dim view of the world. Romance novels certainly turn out better than Animal Farm and they express another real, but uplifting view of life. These are the stories Nia chooses to tell. She has written three novels, three novellas and is currently writing a contemporary romance about an Olympic ski racer and the heir to a ski resort.

Jacqui Jacoby
An award winning writer and a ten year veteran of martial arts, Jacqui Jacoby's career is multi- faceted. With her trusted computerized day planner, Miguel, by her side, she is able to work in many aspects of the writing community: as an aspiring author and contributor to the Kiss of Death as well as RWR Magazine; as a chapter volunteer and contest judge, and as a workshop presenter, both live and online.

Amy Strnad
Lured by the promise of adventure, Amy Strnad left a thriving Pediatric practice in Florida and headed for the Alaskan Bush. Currently she lives in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota but continues her work with the Yupik people on a part-time basis. When she is not in Alaska working, she is home with her children, helps her husband in his ongoing, one-man construction of their dream home, and spends the wee hours of every morning indulging her obsession with writing romance.

Kitty Taylor
Kitty Taylor grew up as one of two girls in a career Navy family. Many military brats in similar situations swear they never want to move again, but not Kitty. After graduating from the University of Virginia School of Nursing, she moved to Seattle for two years, and then took a position as a Department of the Army Nurse in Stuttgart, Germany. When she found that the military would provide better pay and health benefits, she joined the Air Force and stayed in for 25 years. Throughout her professional career she became increasing intrigued with writing, but the demands of her career didn't lend itself to trying story telling. Now she's retired and determined to become a published author.