With Every Breath

Beverly Bird confesses to having been the prototype of the rebellious teenager. By the age of five — when she tried to rewrite the ending to The Wizard of Oz because it scared her — she knew she would be a writer.

Therefore, the high school regimen was obviously not for her, and childhood was just something to get through before she could make her mark on the world. On one memorable occasion, she stood up in chemistry class to inform her teacher that she did not need to understand the subject because in a few years she would be writing for a living anyway. She failed the class, of course. Then, some 20 years later, she had to face the teacher at a reunion and admit that when she had to research DNA for a recent book she still had no clue what it was about!

Since words are meant to be read and not eaten, Beverly turned seriously to writing when she was 22. The stars aligned for a time — she was single and her rent was astronomically low because she looked after the elderly lady who owned the building. She'd just gotten laid off from an advertising job with a newspaper due to budget cuts and therefore had an unemployment check coming in weekly. She decided that it was now or never — and Emeralds in the Dark was born, published by Silhouette to launch the Intimate Moments line in 1983.

Since then, Beverly has published 22 books with Silhouette as well as several romantic suspense and historical novels. She prefers strong heroines with hidden soft spots and a penchant for getting themselves into trouble, figuring that she has had some experience herself in that area.

Though she has lived in several places in the United States, Beverly returned to her roots to live on a barrier island off the coast of New Jersey with her son, where periodically she risks running into that chemistry teacher. But these days, she is much less rebellious and tends to tuck tail and run when she encounters someone she probably ticked off 25 years ago!