The first question most people ask within about fifteen minutes of meeting me is, "How did you end up becoming a writer?" They usually ask this with an incredulous look on their face, and to be honest, I never know exactly how to answer. So I laugh and just say, "It's a long story."

You see, I have a Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science and spent twelve years with Big Blue (i.e. IBM, for the uninitiated). And that's not your usual path to a publishing career.

So how did I go from Computer Programming to writing thrillers?

Well, my first love has always been books. I started reading everything I could get my hands on as far back as grade school, wanting, even then, to rewrite stories my own way, either changing the endings or creating new adventures for the characters. However, I didn't actually start writing until high school. My first attempt was a serial story about a cowboy who was a cross between Cat Balou and Jesse James - the fictional character not the real outlaw. I'd write a chapter and pass it around to my friends, then write another. I never finished that story, which is probably a good thing. It was pretty bad.

By college I'd graduated from writing westerns to science fiction short stories that bore a strong resemblance to Star Trek. Are you seeing a pattern here? LOL! I like to think that all those "takeoff" stories were just practice for the real thing.

Funny thing though, during all that time, it never occurred to me that I could write for a living. In college, I didn't even consider majoring in Journalism or English. In my mind, I needed a technical degree to be self-sufficient. So, it wasn't until I'd been working for IBM about seven years that the writing bug bit again. I attended a writer's conference in Orlando and met dozens of people writing all different types of fiction and nonfiction. That weekend changed my life.

I came home and started writing in earnest. I also joined writer's organization, attended writer's conferences, read 'how-to' books and generally immersed myself in the publishing world. It took me five years and writing three complete manuscripts to sell my first book, Keeping Katie, to Harlequin in June of 1993, and the book came out in April of the following year. I left IBM on March 30th of the same year, and as they say, the rest is history. I've been writing full time ever since.

For those of you unfamiliar with my work, I've written five books for Harlequin under the pseudonym Patricia Keelyn: three for Superromance, one for Temptation, and the last book in Harlequin's Heart of the West Series. I also wrote three books for Bantam Loveswept under the name Pat Van Wie. I loved writing romance under different names because it gave me the opportunity to write different kinds of books. For Harlequin, I leaned toward highly emotional family-oriented stories, while for Bantam I dove into suspense. Which led me to my newest and most exciting persona yet: Patricia Lewin.

I'm now writing Hardcover Suspense for Ballantine Books and loving every minute of it. It's what I've been working toward since that first conference in Orlando.

Take care and enjoy my site!
Patricia Lewin