DEBBIE MACOMBER

In my books and in romance as a genre, there is a positive, uplifting feeling that leaves the reader with a sense of encouragement and hope for a brighter future - or a brighter present.

I am a big popcorn fanatic. I love popcorn. In fact one year for my birthday, my husband bought me one of those big popcorn machines like they have in movie theaters.

Readers have actually changed the way I've done things, changed the course of my career even, about four or five times. Just from reader feedback.

I've always been a creative speller and never achieved good grades in school. I graduated from high school but didn't have the opportunity to attend college, so I did what young women my age did at the time - I married.

We all face difficulties of our own, and how comforting it is to immerse yourself in a book - my book, any book, any romance. It's entertainment, it's escape, and it can even be an inspiration!

My office walls are covered with autographs of famous writers - it's what my children call my 'dead author wall.' I have signatures from Mark Twain, Earnest Hemingway, Jack London, Harriett Beecher Stowe, Pearl Buck, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, to name a few.

Romance focuses on emotions and on relationships, both of which are fundamentally important to women.

I'm dyslexic, although they didn't have a word for it when I was in grade school. The teachers said I had 'word blindness.'

I'm a yarnaholic. That means I have more yarn stashed away than any one person could possibly use in three or four lifetimes. There's something inspiring about yarn that makes me feel I could never have enough.

First and foremost, I consider myself a storyteller. And I'm endlessly fascinated with people, with what they do and why... and how they feel about it. Which means I'm interested in romance fiction. I was drawn to it, as both a reader and a writer, at the very beginning of my career. It's my kind of storytelling.

The best way to get even is to forget.

Cultivating the habit of good deeds will not only affect those around us, it will improve our own emotional well being.

I'm an optimist and my heroines seem to be that way, too. It's too much work to be cynical and distrusting. That doesn't mean I create perfect stories and perfect people, however. What this means is that my stories are resolved in a manner that leaves the reader with a feeling of hope and happy expectation . . . and wanting to reach for another one of my books.

We're each our own person, we live our own lives, make our own mistakes, learn from them and move forward.

Maybe money can't buy love - but it can get you practically everything else.

Here's where the real power of generosity comes in. Often, the more we give, the more we receive.

It's all right to sit on your pity pot every now and again. Just be sure to flush when you are finished. Mrs. Miracle

People are funny. They want the front of the bus, the middle of the road and the back of the church. —Mrs. Miracle

Feed your faith and your doubts will starve to death.

Our world was created with a sense of order. For every loss, there is a gain. Sometimes we are so blinded by the loss that we don't see the gain, don't recognize the gift.

Humans tend to build walls when they should be opening doors.

My greatest strength as a writer is that I'm a storyteller. But, it was a long, hard struggle for me to make the transition from verbally telling stories to writing them. You'll note I don't dwell on descriptions in my writing, because I'm far more interested in telling the story. There are many better writers in this world, but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone more passionate about stories than I am.

Your heart has to let your head know what it wants.

I love the way knitting brings people together.

Some marriages are made in heaven, but they all have to be maintained on earth. Mrs Miracle