[Breathless]

Jessica Hart

Jessica’s earlier career was a haphazard one, including stints as foreign newsdesk secretary in London, cook on an Australian outback cattle station, TEFL teacher in Jakarta and interpreter on expedition in Cameroon. She first stumbled into writing as a way of funding a Ph.D. in Medieval Studies, and since then she has written more than 55 books for Harlequin Mills & Boon’s Romance series. A multiple finalist and past winner of both a RITA (Christmas Eve Marriage, Best Traditional Romance 2005) and the UK’s coveted Romance Prize (Contracted: Corporate Wife, 2006), Jessica was awarded the National Readers’ Choice Award (Traditional category) for her 50th book, Last-Minute Proposal, in 2009 and again in 2010 for Cinderella’s Wedding Wish. In 2009 she was nominated for a Romantic Times Series Career Achievement Award.
The more Jessica writes, the more interested she is in how and why romance works, and she really enjoys teaching and sharing what she has learnt about writing over the past 20 years. She is a reader for the Romantic Novelists’ Association New Writers’ Scheme, and has presented workshops at romance writing conferences in the UK, North America and, most recently, Australia. She teaches an intensive week-long course in Tuscany (a dirty job, but somebody has to do it) and a ten week course, From the Slush Piles to the Shelves: Writing Fiction that Sells around the World, at the Centre for Lifelong Learning at the University of York, where she will also be offering a one-day Crash Course in Writing Romance in May 2011.


Awards


Oh-So Sensible Secretary


Finalist
Best Harlequin Romance 2010
Romantic Times


Cinderella's Wedding Wish





Finalist
Best Harlequin Romance 2009
Romantic Times


Last-Minute Proposal






Romance Writers of America
Shortlisted RITA
2009 Contemporary Series




Newlyweds of Convenience

Finalist
2009 Booksellers' Best Award - Traditional
The Greater Detroit RWA




Promoted: to Wife and Mother

Romantic Novelists' Association
Shortlisted for the 2009 RNA Romance Prize


Christmas Eve Marriage




Romance Writers of America
Rita Winner
2005 Best Traditional Romance




Contracted: Corporate Wife

Romantic Novelists' Association
2006 RNA Romance Prize




Her Ready-Made Family

Romantic Novelists' Association
Shortlisted for the 2007 RNA Romance Prize