Literary Birthday – 20 September – Jude Deveraux

Happy Birthday, Jude Deveraux, born 20 September 1947.

Quotes

1. There are no new stories. It all depends on how you handle them. In romances the characters are going to fall in love with each other; you know that when you see the syrupy cover. It’s how you get there that’s the fun.
2. You should really stay true to your own style. When I first started writing, everybody said to me, ‘Your style just isn’t right because you don’t use the really flowery language that romances have.’ My romances – compared to what’s out there – are very strange, very odd, very different. And I think that’s one of the reasons they’re selling.
3. I don’t like to read books where I feel as though I’ve stepped into the middle of things and don’t know what’s going on. I like to see characters I’ve met before, but I don’t want to feel left out because I haven’t read other books in the series.
4. My university degree is in art and, yes, I do a lot of drawing for all my books. I have a big drafting table set up in a spare bedroom and I cover it with maps and house plans and sketches that I use in the books. Also, I truly love architecture, so that plays a big part in all my books.
5. ‘How can I use that in a book?’ is always in my mind. When something rotten happens to me, I can often settle my mind by figuring out how to put the incident into a novel. Now that I’m writing murder mysteries, I have a list of people I want to kill.
6. I think writing is good. You get to stay home and you can work all day or skip a day. I love looking at a blank sheet of paper and thinking that I can fill it up with anything I want to write.

Jude​ ​Deveraux​​ ​is​ ​an American author. She has written 43​ ​New​ ​York​ ​Times​ ​bestsellers,​ ​including​ ​​Sweet Liar,​ ​the​ ​Nantucket series,​ ​and​ ​​A​ ​Knight​ ​in​ ​Shining​ ​Armor.​ ​She​ ​won  ​a​ ​Romantic​ ​Times​ ​Pioneer​ ​Award​ ​in​ ​2013​.​ ​There​ ​are​ ​more​ ​than​ ​60 ​million​ ​copies​ ​of​ ​her​ ​books​ ​in​ ​print​ ​worldwide.

Source for image

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jude_Deveraux,_Buenos_Aires_2016_1_(cropped).jpg

Embajada de EEUU en Argentina, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Source for quotes

 by Amanda Patterson

Please click here for our Literary Birthday Calendar