Author CJ Dunham

MY AUTHOR BIO BEGINS with a true confession: My first story was plagiarized.  However, the fact that I was seven years old should balance the scales a little in my favor. After all, I couldn’t even say the word, much less know what it meant! It was second grade, Mrs. Alexander’s class, and we were assigned to write a Christmas story. I borrowed the idea of reindeer kidnapping Santa from a magazine and, voila!, my writing career was born!

OUR SMITH CORONA TYPEWRITER never knew what hit it. From the day I stole it (yes, yet another theft)  from its peaceful, dark corner to my writer’s desk, it became my literary accomplice. She was blue, my favorite color, and she was electric, state-of-the-art. Make no mistake, I adore  my laptop–my husband claims it’s a love affair–but there was a cadence, an actual music, in the sound of those striking keys. As the clicking and rattling gathered momentum with my thoughts, it became the sound of my adrenaline.

UNFORTUNATELY, I’VE LOST those first stories and poems, but I remember turning Smith on and listening to her hum with excitement, just waiting for my fingers to tap out another line of prose. First loves are never forgotten, and my fingertips still miss the velvet-smooth vibrations of her keys.

MARRIAGE, MOTHERHOOD, DIVORCE; followed by remarriage, step-motherhood, and a “surprise” addition to the family, became the next chapters in my life. There are  no books written, by myself or any other author, comparable to the incredible stories my husband and five children have written on the pages of my life. Not until my youngest child entered school in 2002 did I actively pursue a professional writing career. Each morning I read to her in the school library, hugged her goodbye at the classroom, and then my feet hit the pavement as I literally ran to my car, and to what was then our HP Millennium computer.

IN  2004 I PUBLISHED my first book, a fully illustrated children’s book, THE QUEST FOR ELOSHIDII, with Granite Publishers. In 2005 CRICKET magazine accepted my short story, THE TRAVELER, and published it as a three-part story in their January, February, and March 2010 issues. My older YA paranormal romance trilogy, THE CRYING CHANDELIER, is currently being represented by Terrie Wolf of the AKA Literary Agency.

PRESENTLY, I am developing a humorous romantic intrigue, a middle grade novel, and a gluten-free cookbook.

TO MY FELLOW WRITERS, whether you partner up with Smith, Mac, or Bic, I hope you have as great a life adventure as I have had–and am having! For those of you who do not love writing (is that humanly possible?), consider this your invitation to open the pages of my books, like the spreading of wings, and come fly with me into my incredible worlds, meeting astounding and frightening people. When you close the covers you may find that you, like me, will not return the same.